Night Security
by ultimateform14
Summary: Two years post the war, Lucy shows up on Desmond's doorstep, alone and soaked in rain. A few days after that, Desmond asks her to come with him for a night of security patrol at a resort he is temporarily working for... Slightly AU.
1. Too Long

It was cold out, but still much warmer than it should be for an October night. And here she was, standing on his front porch, soaked in rain, with a more genuine smile then he would have imagined possible for someone who looked as tired and cold as she did. The shock temporarily overrode his sense of chivalry. It was a good minute before he could pull his mouth closed again... and by the time, she looked slightly discouraged.

He shook himself and stepped aside, gesturing to the inside of his new, fancy-looking apartment. She stepped through with the same half-concealed hurt on her face as a minute ago. When he shut and clicked the lock on the door, she turned to ask him if it was a bad time.

But the words never made it out of her mouth.

With the same sweeping motion she hadn't seen him use in more than the long two years since they'd last seen each other, he whipped her right up off her feet into a hug. It was moments before they were laughing, bouncing around... soaking his apartment living room with all the rainwater she'd just absorbed on her long walk over.

They had survived, you see. Survived the war, survived the aftermath, and successfully kept it all under wraps. The people in the apartments around them had no idea they owed their existence to the man and woman reuniting happily on the light blue carpeting of the living room where he had eventually lost his balance spinning and they had tumbled. The six old women sitting around a table playing old board games in the apartment beneath them glared up and began to gossip about the noise level.

And it was all possible because of the objects of their complaint. But neither of those objects cared. It had been too long... Too long...

* * *

When the war had ended and the cleanup began, he had asked her to come live with him. He had no money, no aspirations at the time, no goals... Just to enjoy living for the time being. Just savor all that they had come through – which, for her, included a near-death experience; one that he had ironically caused and then corrected.

But at the time, she had said no, because of the other man. The man that he had liked, the man that he had become fairly close friends with... The man that had somehow been completely oblivious about his friend's feelings for his girlfriend. Everyone else had cottoned on. Her technologically-brilliant best friend, his Historically-obsessed best friend, her mother, his father... They all knew what was SUPPOSED to happen, but it didn't.

The nature of their lives had kept them fairly well out of the loop for a while. It was mid-January of 2013 when he'd first asked her, and a few weeks before that, they had bother discovered the addictive joys of what her tech-friend called Facebook. Naturally, they had accepted each other's friend requests. They were nothing if not the best of friends, right? But that meant pictures. It meant email notifications every ten seconds about what statuses they posted, and what they did constantly. It was around the time that pictures of her and her sorta-kinda-unspoken-boyfriend starting showing up on his newsfeed that he finally decided to ask her. And it was a few more weeks before he actually did it...

In the remaining months, both of them danced around the issue like it would bring about a second cataclysm if they didn't. How many times had she come across him sitting alone on the big windowsills at night in their hideout, looking out at the stars and moon...? How many times had he accidentally come into their workroom and found her crying...? How often did they completely ignore each other, even when it was causing them so much pain, and everyone around them could see it?

But they each came to a point where they decided enough was enough. Unfortunately, that point came when the cleanup and the celebration amongst the Assassins ended. After a night at a dance hosted by his father, largely in honor to him and his team, they were obligated to pair up and dance. Of course, it was going to be them... Their friends had played it smart. Their friends had just told each other of their feelings and let it be happily-ever-after. And after seven years of playing the same games of emotional hide-and-seek with each other, they deserved it.

But for both couples, the dance was life altering. So sweet that the British historian proposed to the tech-geek. So slow that it gave the Man of the World and his Light a chance to think... And though neither of them had said it aloud, they both wanted the fighting amongst them to end.

That was when he decided to do something about it, and rather than wait two weeks to tell her he was sorry, he went to her the next day, when he finally saw her for a moment without her boyfriend. Mid-conversation was when her boyfriend reappeared and they both announced to him that they were moving... out of state.

He'd tried to act happy for them, he really had. But he couldn't stop himself: after five minutes of listening to them chatter excitedly about their plans, that was when he'd hit her boyfriend and then stormed away, leaving her there to tend to her injured lover in complete shock.

The day that they'd left had been the worst of their lives. She was too upset about the way things had turned out between them to properly enjoy the moment. He was too regretful and ashamed to go to her again and try to make it right. They were both too prideful to admit that what they were doing, both to themselves and to each other, was wrong.

So, when the train had begun to pull away, after he watched her say her goodbyes to everyone, he stood back and watched the train leave. Her boyfriend had begun to read something, or at least, that's what he gathered from the glasses and the decidedly-turned down head. But she was staring out the window, somewhat forlornly.

Their eyes locked as the train pulled away, and he was overcome with an impulse to reach his hand out to her. And so he did...

It was at that point, finally, that _she _decided to do something about all their fighting. She reached back. Her hand flew to the window. And they watched each other till they no longer could. The tears came to their eyes afterwards, still too prideful to show each other – even though they were both certain that was it for them, and any chance they'd ever had together – to show how they REALLY felt.

* * *

And now... she was here...


	2. I Know

It was half an hour before they calmed down. Desmond had ended up on his back, staring at his ceiling, with her head and right hand on his chest.

Slowly, the smile faded from his face as he remembered everything that had happened between them. A wave of emotions passed through. Should he be pissed that she came after all that she put him through? Should he just be happy she was there... and there alone, at that? Should he be worried about her after she just came all that way in the rain? Should he apologize for his part in all this?

He finally settled on just asking her what she was doing and she got there. It was to accomplish this most simple of goals that he raised his head.

"Wait a minute, how did you find me? And how did you get here? Where's Gary?"

Lucy's smile also faded – he felt it go, as her face was still pressed into his chest.

"Gary's back at home," she replied. "At least, I think he is. I left a few months ago."

"What?" demanded Desmond, sitting all the way up. "You left Gary a few months ago?"

Lucy looked at her feet and nodded. "I wanted to see you."

Now, a brand new wave of emotions hit him. She left her boyfriend a few months ago to go looking for _him_. His first instinct was to hug her, but he suppressed that in favor of finding out exactly how she felt about it. Some part of him didn't believe that it was as simple as her just deciding that she liked him more than her boyfriend.

But her explanation still didn't answer, "How did you know where I was?"

"Your father. I went to ask him when I finally got back to New York. I thought you might have gotten your old job back at _Bad Weather_, but they told me you didn't. So, I went to visit Bill, and... well, he told me."

On top of everything else, Desmond now felt like he might punch his father the next time he saw him. He had accepted William's generous offer to help him out financially (because Desmond refused to say that his dad was "supporting" him) on the grounds that he ask before doing anything like that. Desmond didn't want to be found, least of all by Lucy... Or, at least, half the time. The other half, he often had to resist the urge to go looking for her himself. To his knowledge, the only other people from the Assassin order who knew where he was were Shaun, Rebecca, and William. And now, Lucy?

"Desmond?" came the concerned voice of Lucy.

Great. She was worried. Worried that she might have said the wrong thing, or made a mistake by coming. The predominant feeling in him was to crush those worries before they did any damage. So, Desmond just told her that it was alright, he just needed a moment to process all this. But she didn't look satisfied with this explanation, and so he tried to push it to the back of his mind as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

"I'm happy to see you," he said softly into her ear. "It's just that it's a lot to take in. That's all it is. I promise."

When he pulled back, he saw the traces of a smile in her expression, and he knew that he'd done it. For now, he'd be able to take time to figure out how to feel about this.

"I'm... happy... to see you, too," she said back.

But the smile had gone. In its place was anguish – finely masked anguish, but anguish all the same. As before when they'd been in situations like this, he reacted to her discomfort by pulling her onto his lap, so that she could huddle in and lean against him.

For a few minutes, they were silent. Lucy grasped Desmond's shirt and held onto it, as if to confirm that he really was there. Desmond kept a tight grip on her and never slackened for the very same reason. It was exactly how they had spent their first night when they'd found out that she wasn't really dead. And when it was over, they looked into each other's eyes for a few minutes more. Still without saying anything, they just looked... and looked... and looked... trying to read the stories of each other's lives in the last two years through their eyes.

Desmond saw confusion, pain, remorse, and anger.

Lucy saw shock, fear, uncertainty, and happiness.

It was Desmond who first broke the silence. "How did you get here?"

"I walked," answered Lucy.

Desmond's grip on her tightened and his eyes widened. "All the way from my dad's house to here? That's two hours of driving!"

Lucy shook her head. "No, I didn't walk all the way from there! I rode a bus, but it broke down. They told us we'd have to be transferred to a nearby hotel so we could make our own arrangements, but that it would be a few hours before transport could get that far out on the highway. I..." She looked down at his chest, and her voice broke a little. "...I couldn't wait that long. We were forty-five minutes out from your complex... so I slipped out of the crowd, and... walked."

Desmond took a deep breath and kissed the top of her head, then slid out from under her and began to walk away. "You need to eat something," he said. "Quickly, too."

But Lucy wasn't fooled. "What? What's wrong? Please, don't be angry with me, Desmond, I came all this way to see you and I– "

"–could've been killed!" exclaimed Desmond.

Seeing the hurt return to her face caused him to take another deep breath, and run his hand down his own face.

"You could have been killed. You could have been molested, or even just mugged. Some gangster could have decided to have fun with you for the night. Hell, some random crowd of women could've jumped you and stolen your clothes. Any number of things could've happened." He took a step towards her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout. I just... Nobody would've known where you were."

"I was an assassin for seven years!" replied Lucy... loudly, incredulously. "Do you think I couldn't handle myself against a group of WOMEN looking for a change of clothes!?"

Desmond held his hands up and jutted his lower lip out. "Alright, alright. Bad example. Really bad. I just don't want anything to happen to you, alright?"

She said nothing. She folded her arms across her chest and shook her head lightly. "Should I not have come?"

The question took him completely off guard. He could do nothing except stare.

Unfortunately, that was what she took to be his answer.

"I understand. If you could just help me find a way back, I'll go and... do something," she finished awkwardly. "For now, though, could I just use the bathroom?"

She started to walk past, but he caught her by the arms and pulled her back to him. He had decided. Then and there. He knew how to feel about Lucy.

"I just don't want you to leave."

Again, they looked each other right in the eyes and couldn't look away. What followed was incredible.

It started with passionate kissing. Then, she slipped a hand under his shirt. Then, he returned the favor. Next was the gradual undressing as they made their way to a more comfortable surface – his couch, in this case. There was a point in which Lucy was straddling his waist where they stopped kissing for a moment and both considered briefly, but seriously, not doing it.

Neither could stop themselves, though... In the end... They spent most of the night with their hands over each other's mouths – or their mouths all over each other – trying to keep quiet. Or... well... quiet _enough_...

* * *

Desmond wasn't sure what woke him up the next day: the knock on the door or the sunlight falling on his eyelids. It was the knock on the door that registered with him first, though. In something of a panic, he scrambled to his feet and grabbed the nearest article of clothing he could find, but the knocker got a little more persistent. A headache began to form behind Desmond's eyes as he slid back into his boxer-briefs, threw the nearest blanket over Lucy, and headed for the door, determined not to let whoever it was come in.

It turned out to be Rebecca, and she didn't wait for an invitation.

"Is Lucy here!?" she asked excitedly, pushing right past him into the living room. "I talked to Bill last night and... oh..."

Her gaze had just fallen on a stirring Lucy. Her arms fell limp at her sides and her jaw opened. When she looked back at Desmond, her eyes had become approximately the size of tea saucers. The effect was a little alarming.

"She, uh... definitely 'made it,' then, huh?"

Desmond could only nod.

"Desmond?" came the voice of the woman in question as she sat up on the couch. "Rebecca!?"


	3. Memory

Lucy sat up and pulled the blankets up to her chest, gaping at the friend she hadn't seen for two years like she'd just sprouted a second head.

"Rebecca..." said Lucy, half-grinning. "Rebecca, when did you get here?"

Rebecca said nothing. She merely stared, her eyes returning to their regular size.

"Rebecca?"

It took a few more seconds and a shake of the head on Rebecca's part before she could answer – and when she did, it was with a sharp, "When did _you_ get here?"

Lucy looked slightly taken aback, but nonetheless, she managed a smile. "Uh... Just... yesterday."

"Didn't take you long to get to the point, it seems."

Although he'd never done so outwardly, Desmond was definitely rolling his eyes internally at this point. He and Rebecca had always been somewhat strained. When he'd first come to the Assassins, he thought he and Rebecca would be good friends – they shared so many interests and got along so well. But even after Lucy hooked up with Gary, Rebecca was still cold to Desmond. She ignored him, she glared at him from across the room, she conveniently "forgot" to invite him to go places with the rest of the group, and she'd take subtle (or so she seemed to have thought) cracks at him whenever the opportunity presented itself. Desmond had even asked his dad not to tell her where he was moving to, but because of his exposure to the Animus, William had insisted that the alternative was to move back in with his parents until they were sure he was safe. As much as Desmond had seriously been tempted, he'd chosen to allow it.

And now he was seriously regretting it. If he'd taken his father's offer, at least it would've saved Lucy that whole ordeal with the bus trip and the walk through the rain to get back to him. It might have prevented the sex, though... and that would've been a _big_ drawback.

The rest of the visit with Rebecca didn't go well, but at least it didn't last long. Her treatment of Desmond had gone from unpleasant to outright hostile. And she hadn't been exactly kind to Lucy, either.

After the war had ended, Rebecca's controlling side had really come out. If there was one thing Desmond hadn't been jealous of about Lucy's relationship with Gary, it was how involved Rebecca kept trying to get with it.

It first became apparent to Desmond when Lucy had come in one dreary Monday morning to do some paperwork – regarding the Animus for the Assassins' records – with such a bright smile on her face, and Rebecca had pressed like a pressure cooker to find out what had Lucy so happy. But even when she'd finally gotten what she wanted, she still wasn't satisfied. It then became her goal to find out every last detail of the encounter, up to the point that she convinced Lucy to bring Gary to meet everyone the next day.

Desmond always glared whenever he remembered it...

* * *

_It was a very bright Tuesday morning, and for once, Desmond was in a good mood as he sauntered down into the Animus Team's main room. Even as he walked in and greeted Rebecca (only to receive a forced, obligatory wave back), it didn't break his stride. He jumped right on the stool in front of the computer and logged into his email with a hum on his lips._

_ William noticed. "Everything alright, Desmond?"_

_ "Definitely."_

_ William waited for something further, but when nothing else was forthcoming, he patted his hand on Desmond's shoulder twice and took something of a stride in his own step as he swept from the room in his typically-arrogant fashion._

_ Desmond blinked twice as he watched the door swing closed behind his dad. He shook his head and went back to the laptop... at least until the sound of very bright laughter came to his ears. He'd recognize that sound anywhere. Lucy... Lucy's laughter. He spun around on his stool to greet her as the door opened... and stopped short when he caught sight of the man she was laughing into the shoulder of._

_ All he could do was watch as she all but threw herself into the chair, giggling._

_ "Where the hell did you grow up?"she asked the man._

_ "I told you that already," he replied, taking her hand and seating himself on the edge of her desk._

_ Desmond briefly remembered the bitching-out he'd gotten from her when he'd done that. It set his teeth on edge to watch someone else do it now – someone with a penis, no less._

_ She leaned forward on her palms, resting her elbows in front of her keyboard. "Yeah, but I know other people from Idaho and they weren't this much fun." She looked away from him and her eyes fell on Desmond. She smiled, but then shook her head as if she'd just remembered she was supposed to be introducing the mystery man to everyone. "Everyone..." she began, "this is Gary."_

_ "Hi, there," added Gary with a bright (and, in Desmond's opinion, pretentious) smile._

_ Rebecca immediately leapt up and went to go shake his hand. "Hi, Gary! I'm Rebecca Crane!"_

_ Shaun followed, somewhat more hesitantly. "Shaun Hastings."_

_ "Hi, Shaun," answered Gary with a nod. "And... you must be Desmond?" He'd turned to look at Desmond now._

_ Desmond didn't hop up, though._

_ "Hi, I'm Gary," he said, stepping forward with his hand out._

_ Desmond regarded it for about half a second, but his gut reaction when he looked to Lucy was to shake it. "Uh... Desmond. Miles, I mean. Desmond Miles."_

_ "I heard a lot about you," said Gary. He looked back over his shoulder as he released Desmond's hand and went to go stand over by Lucy. "Lucy told me."_

_ Desmond managed a slight smile. "That's... awfully nice of her." He turned to give Lucy a slightly-wider smile._

_ If she recognized the message hidden in that gesture, though, she certainly didn't show it. She just giggled again and wrapped her arms around Gary's torso. "Sorry, but it's kind of exciting." Sh shrugged. "We're alive because of you."_

_ Desmond blushed slightly and looked at his feet for a moment..._

_ But only for a moment. He looked back up and nodded once to her before spinning his stool around back to the computer screen._

_He thought he saw a confused expression come to Lucy's face just beforehand. He knew he saw Rebecca's look of smug triumph. He wasted no time in returning it with a short, two-worded email – one that was returned with a smiley face..._

* * *

As the door closed behind Rebecca, Desmond raised his eyebrows and took a drink from his bottle of water. He stood to face Lucy...

"Lucy?"

She didn't reply, merely slumping against the door with a deep breath.

Desmond approached her cautiously, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Lucy?"

She looked up. "Yes?"

Her already-bright eyes were shining even more. With a sigh of his own, he pulled her up against his chest.

"I'm sorry, Lucy."

"It's not your fault," she answered. Her voice had broken slightly. "I really hoped Rebecca would understand."

Desmond shrugged. "Not in her nature, I guess. Certainly not as much as it seemed."

"You know, maybe... maybe she just got fed up after almost eight years as an Assassin."

"We all got fed up, Lucy," said Desmond, pressing his lips to the top of her head in an attempt to hide his annoyance at her consistent defense of Rebecca. "And she never hesitated to remind us all of our situation."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned the side of her face against his chest. "I know. I remember. She could be almost as bad as your father."

"Now THAT I can't argue with," said Desmond, with a chuckle.

And he knew he really couldn't.


	4. Frustration

The rest of the week was uneventful, and for some reason, Desmond found that to be incredibly frustrating. In the mornings, they woke up and ate breakfast, talking about some of the things they'd been doing since they'd last seen each other. During the afternoons, Desmond would work out and sometimes Lucy would watch, or even follow along. By the end of the week, both were in a pretty solid routine.

William came to visit them on Friday and was pleased to see Lucy had made it in one piece. Apparently, though, Rebecca had also been to see _him_, and she'd made it clear she wasn't happy with what was going on. Initially, Desmond's thought was to just give Rebecca up for lost, but that night, Lucy had come to sleep with him (non-sexually) because of how worried she was about the situation.

If there was one thing Desmond had to say irritated him about Lucy (and there were many, if he was honest), it had to be how much she worried. When he'd been at Abstergo, he'd appreciated it. When he'd rejoined the Assassins officially, he'd thought it was cute. By the time they'd arrived at Monteriggioni, it was seriously starting to grate on him. When they thought she was dead and gone forever, though... he really missed it. But in the time since then, there'd been more than enough of it to drive him nuts again – and this thing with Rebecca was really starting to test the limits of his temper. He always groaned inwardly whenever he thought about how little time it had been. Only a week since his reunion with Lucy, and Rebecca was already raising hell because of it. This wasn't how he'd imagined it would be like if Lucy ever came back to him.

But Rebecca _was_ getting _part_ of her wish: he and Lucy hadn't had anymore sex. This was beginning to bother Desmond for more than just a few reasons. He wondered if Lucy was just reacting to Rebecca, or was it something more serious? Was she dissatisfied with their encounter... with his performance... last time? Was she not quite as happy to see him now that she was with him as she thought she would be? Or was there something even worse that he'd yet to think of?

The amount of time he spent thinking about it was getting to be insane. At first he figured it was just because he'd been used to a fairly-frequent number of decent sexual encounters back at the bar, and even after the war had ended and Lucy had left, he'd never quite gotten back into that groove. Part of him wanted to chalk it up to his attachment to Lucy. In fact, one night after attending a formal play with his parents, he'd actually moaned Lucy's name to the woman he'd ended up taking home. _That_ certainly didn't go over well... But eventually, he'd had to admit to himself it was because his life was irreversibly changed by the things he'd been through. And though Lucy was most likely the biggest part of that, it still wasn't the funnest of revelations to experience and accept. But it also wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be when the thought first occurred to him. All he cared about now, though... was that it didn't help to solve his problem with Lucy.

Why was she staying? How long was she staying for? What did she think of him – of them? She certainly couldn't be considering them as a couple if she wasn't willing to even have sex with him. The greatest of his fears was that she'd been reconsidering. After all, it seemed a rather sudden decision, the way she'd made it seem like when she described it. She'd just, what, decided to up and leave her boyfriend? They hadn't talked about it any further since she'd first gotten there, and Desmond didn't want to push the subject, in case it made her possible-second thoughts worse. He wasn't going to ask her about the sex, either... At least not yet.

In the meanwhile, during the time that Desmond had been away, he'd decided to go out and get a job, even though his parents had made it clear he wouldn't need to for at least ten years. But Desmond was bored and lonely, two things that never mixed well – and so, without fail, he hunted down something, anything to do. Success had come in the form of a spa and fitness resort near him that two recently-acquainted friends of his had been employed by. And as a result, he was called in from time to time to cover for the regular night watchman, who had been there for six years, and was truthfully quite sick of it. So, Desmond got plenty of work, because this man took frequent vacations. As it happened, he was soon to become a grandfather, and so had taken a whopping two weeks off to go visit with his wife and extended family. Normally, Desmond would've been happy for the distraction, but now that the primary reason for getting the job in the first place had been resolved (more or less), he wasn't exactly excited.

And when he told Lucy about it, she wasn't excited, either. "You're going to be gone all night?"

"Uh... yeah," was all he could say.

She was standing at the stove, making breakfast for dinner. "But... what about us?"

"What _about_ us?" His voice had a hint of irritation behind it, and he hated himself for half-hoping it showed. "I'm sorry, Lucy, but I can't call this off. I really do want to work, to a certain extent, and this is a good deal."

She sighed and flipped the pancake on the pan in front of her. "How long will it last?"

"Two weeks, and then whenever else they might need a cover after his vacation ends," he answered, taking a swig from his water bottle. "It doesn't happen _that_ often, and this time, I won't have to be gone every night for the whole two weeks. They've got a few other people to cover for him, too. I don't think they trust me too much there. The owner's a major control freak."

At this, Lucy didn't seem to be able to stop herself from looking up. "What kind of 'major control freak'?"

Desmond took another swig. "I don't know _what's_ wrong with him. He's got the entire place bugged, for starters. As if tapping the phones weren't enough, he's now openly admitted to his employees that he's got cameras all over the resort. Basically, nothing you do is safe unless you're in the bathroom or a guest's room... and who knows, even then, he might be watching and just not telling anybody." He fell silent for a moment, but then an idea came to him... "I'd never have sex there, I'll tell you that much."

Lucy kept flipping her pancakes. "Mm."

Draining the last of his water bottle down his throat, Desmond stood up and tossed it across the room to the garbage can. He didn't look to see if it landed inside or not, such was his frustration. But he thought he knew what might help to take his mind off it. He stepped into what was supposed to be his bedroom and dug around in his dresser for a moment, looking for something he'd kept with him since the war ended... He found it, at last, in an old envelope – Mrs. Stillman's contact information. A plan had formed in his mind a long time ago...

One of the painful things caused by the war that Lucy had once expressed to Desmond was how much she missed her family...

So Desmond wanted to reunite them.

The inspiration for this plan had come from a conversation he'd had with Lucy shortly after meeting Gary. After the meeting, Desmond could only avoid Lucy and Gary for so long, after all – eventually, he'd had to talk to her about the lukewarm nature of his reaction to the introduction. That time had come when she approached him for lunch the Friday of the same week. That was around the time Desmond's loneliness had begun in earnest. It had really only been Lucy who'd paid a whole lot of attention to him, because his father had had so much to do (although, in William's defense, he _did_ try this time) and neither Shaun nor Rebecca were exactly his closest of friends. So, when Lucy had grown so close to Gary, it pretty much left Desmond alone.

Even with Gary around, Lucy had still made time for Desmond that day... And though he was sure the predominant part of her choice to approach him was to find out why he'd reacted so coldly to Gary, he somehow didn't think that was all there was to it, given the nature their discussion eventually turned to...

* * *

_When Friday came, Desmond was rarely upset. Even working with the Assassins, he still got his weekends off. Not that he'd barely ever had them off working at the bar, but still..._

_ Unfortunately, to get to Saturday, he'd first have to get through Friday... and it was with that thought in mind that he trudged across the lunch room of the headquarters to the table he usually sat at. It was the coldest, loneliest place in the entire building, and it struck Desmond as ironic that, even after how much Lucy and William had made him out to be the savior of the world – and even though he had miraculously lived up to that – nobody seemed to care who he was or what was going on with him anymore. There some positives to this (such as the much-improved relationship with his parents or how easy it was to get laid with the abilities he now possessed), but then again, he somehow hadn't seen himself ending up so... alone... again... when the war had ended._

_ As he reached the table and turned to sit down, his eyes inadvertently fell on the table his so-called "friends" usually sat at. It looked like Lucy was skipping today, though, because only Shaun, Rebecca, and Gary were there. Seeing Gary never put Desmond in a good mood... mostly because he couldn't even begin to understand how Gary's existence was fair. In the last few days, his information gathering skills had taught him that Lucy had actually known Gary for quite a while. She'd even trained with him before going into Abstergo. According to Rebecca (although she'd been talking to Shaun at the time, so Desmond didn't know if it was true or not), Lucy and Gary had even been close back then, to the point that they'd emailed when she was at Abstergo. The thought of it made Desmond grind his teeth..._

_ "Hey."_

_ At the sound of that voice, he snapped back into the cafeteria. There stood Lucy, with a tray of food, looking right back at him._

_ "Oh... hi, Lucy."_

_ "Is it alright if I sit here?"_

_ Desmond nodded. "Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Here..." He reached down and adjusted the chair for her. "I hadn't sat down yet, either, so..."_

_ "Yeah, I noticed," she said as she began to organize her lunch. "What're you thinking so hard about?"_

_ "Oh... I was... just... remembering good times at the bar."_

_ They both sat down. Desmond had a lunch meat sandwich and a can of insta-soup, with a bottle of water to drink. Lucy had what looked like an egg salad and a bag of pretzels, with an Arizona tea to drink._

_ "What kind of times?" asked Lucy, "I mean, if... you don't mind me asking."_

_ "No, of course not," said Desmond. "Why would I mind?"_

_ Lucy shrugged and ate a pretzel. "I don't know. Some people do, though, so I thought it best to... ask."_

_ "You know me, Lucy. I have no problem with it."_

_ She looked down at her tray. "I guess so..."_

_ An awkward moment of silence fell between them. It was easily the most uncomfortable experience of Desmond's life. Since he'd first left his parents, Lucy was the only person who'd ever felt like a real friend to him. She was the only one whose care and affection he trusted. Not because he didn't believe that other people... loved him, for lack of a better word, but because she'd been consistent the longest. At the very least, she'd had a profound effect on him, and he didn't want it to go away._

_ So, he broke the silence first. "I was remembering the first knife fight I witnessed there."_

_ Immediately, she looked up, eyes wide. "What?"_

_ "It was these two guys who came in at around two o'clock that morning. I'd taken a double-shift to try to catch up on some bills. I couldn't afford to fall behind, because that would put me on the grid again. This, of course, was when I thought the only people who might be looking for me were my parents." He chuckled, and took a drink. "Anyway... these two guys came in and I asked 'em what they wanted to drink. So, they ordered, and everything seemed like it was going fine, at first. But I remember they stayed way longer than most of the other customers had since I'd been working there. They came in at two, and I don't think they moved from their seats till four. They kept leaning in to each other and whispering. It looked like it wasn't a nice conversation, either. They were starting to get red in the face. I walked past them as often as I thought I could without catching their attention to try to hear what the hell they were saying. About a half hour after that, I finally overheard one of them say something interesting. Apparently, they were both having marital issues, but only one of them was keeping his dick busy... by fucking the other one's wife."_

_ Lucy blinked prominently._

_ "Yeah. This was also the first time I realized how bad a bar patron can be, just as a whole. Their mindsets, their lifestyles... everything about them, just fucked. So, anyhow, I paid much closer attention after that. It was only fifteen minutes after I'd figured out what was going on that the cheater kicked his buddy's stool out from under him and drew a knife. Nobody said anything after that. The cook went to call the cops, 'cause that was _Bad Weather's_ policy – as soon as you see a weapon, it's cop time. Another two minutes later, and the buddy was stabbed and lying on his ass with a bit of blood coming out. That's about when the police got there, and fortunately, they brought the paramedics, too. But the cheater was pretty drunk... or just really stupid. He had to have known he was already in some serious trouble, but I think he actually meant to kill his friend. He stormed towards him and raised the knife, anyway... The police started trying to reason with him. Now, technically, I was supposed to be security, too. So, I climbed over the bar and grabbed his wrist before he could stab down. He spun around, punched me in the face, and slashed me across the chest."_

_ Lucy turned a ghostly-white._

_ Desmond held up a reassuring hand. "Don't worry, it all worked out. The guy was so drunk, he only got me with the tip of the blade. Literally. One of the policemen zapped him and that was the end of that. The cops took him away, the paramedics loaded up the ex-friend, and one of the nurses took care of me right there. It was fine."_

_ Desmond lifted his shirt, and Lucy could see a portion of the scar there. She reached out and brushed a shaky finger along it._

_ "Dear God..." she whispered._

_ Desmond let his shirt drop and shrugged. "That's the way it is in a bar, sometimes."_

_ "You're not... thinking of going back to that, are you?"_

_ She sounded slightly panicked. Selfish though it sounded, after watching her walking around the headquarters holding hands with Gary for three days, he was encouraged, slightly._

_ He jutted his lower lip out, thoughtfully. "I don't know. It was good money, and I did enjoy most of it."_

_ "God, I'd have quite right there," said Lucy, rubbing her eyes with her hands and taking a deep breath. "That was... very brave of you, Desmond. I guess you had a bit more Assassin in you than you realized, huh?"_

_ "Guess so..." said Desmond._

_ They smiled at each other in contented quiet for a moment._

_ Again, Desmond broke it. "What brought you over here?"_

_ "I saw you standing here, and I hadn't talked to you much for a few days, so I thought... why not?"_

_ "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you, what have you been doing?"_

_ "Nothing much, truthfully," she replied, taking a bite of her salad. "I went to dinner and to see a movie with Gary. That's about it."_

_ "Ah," was all he could think to say._

_ Another break in the flow. Search though he might through his mind for something to say... perhaps another story to tell that painted him in an impressive light... Desmond couldn't think of anything._

_ Finally, Lucy asked, "What?"_

_ "What?" repeated Desmond?_

_ "You know what I mean. Why don't you like Gary?"_

_ "Who says I don't?"_

_ "Just going by your general behavior towards him, I'd say that you did. You were extremely rude to him on Tuesday, anyway, and he was perfectly nice to you."_

_ This caught Desmond by surprise. "Rude, was I?"_

_ Maybe she had noticed a bit more, after all..._

_ "Yes, you know you were," said Lucy. "And, hey, I'm not trying to tell you who to like, but could you at least tell me _why_?"_

_ "I could, but why does it matter? It's not really anything personal, Luce. I don't know the guy that well. I'm sure he _is_ perfectly nice. He just grates on me."_

_ But she wasn't buying. "Why so?"_

_ "Because..." began Desmond, "...because he just does. His voice, his mannerisms... He's pretentious as fuck. I'm glad you're having a nice time with a good friend that you haven't seen or talked to in a long while, but still... He makes me nuts. He just does."_

_ Lucy didn't answer. Her eyes flitted to the side and she ate another pretzel._

_ Minutes passed._

_ "Well, could you try again?" she eventually asked. "I... don't have a whole lot of friends, I guess you could say. And yeah, Gary's a really good friend, but so are you. I'd really like it if you could both get along. And he likes you, so..." her eyes grew a little wider – this time not with fear, "...please?"_

_ He'd never known her to be the type of woman to manipulate men the way some people might say she was trying to manipulate him at that moment._

_ So he nodded. "Sure. Sure, Lucy... I can work on that."_

_ With a warm smile, she reached out and took his hand. "Thank you."_

_ He put his other hand over hers and smiled back._

_ More minutes passed before they finally let go and went back to their lunches._

_ Suddenly, something occurred to Desmond mid-way through a sip of his soup. "Lucy, what about your family?"_

_ "What about them?" she answered nonchalantly._

_ "You never told me anything about them... or what your plans are for reuniting with them."_

_ The smile faded from her face. "I'd rather not talk about that."_

_ "Oh, come on," said Desmond. "I answered your question – _both_ of them."_

_ He cocked his head to the side, slightly._

_ She considered this for a moment. "Yes... Yes, you did. Alright..." She adjusted in her chair and leaned forward on her elbows. "Here's the deal with my family: they think I've completely abandoned them."_

_ It was Desmond's turn to be surprised. "I'm sorry?"_

_ She sighed. "When I joined the Assassins, it was because my father was killed by the Templars. He was on a team-based mission in Egypt, under the premise of taking a business trip to San Diego. My Mother was _not_ involved. Dad said he didn't want to risk everyone else. For some reason, he requested that I'd be trained alone, and if anything happened to him, I'd be entrusted to protect the family. I guess he thought he'd live a little longer. Or, at least, that's what I've been trying to convince myself."_

_ Desmond took her hand again._

_ Lucy ducked her head. "They got him when I was ten. Obviously, the family doesn't know the truth. They think he fell out of a fifth story window in the building he was in.. He was really shot through the head by a Templar agent when it turned out the lead on a Piece of Eden they were chasing was falsely planted. Dad and his team knew they were being tracked. They were supposed to lead the Templars there, then turn on them and thin the ranks." Tears were running down Lucy's cheeks as she looked back up, although she was not openly crying or sobbing at all. "It didn't turn out that way."_

_ She sniffled once, so Desmond offered her a napkin to dry her eyes and nose with._

_ "Thank you," she said, and began to wipe the tears that had fallen off her arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to have a breakdown."_

_ "It's alright," Desmond answered softly. "You need time to let it all out, too."_

_ "Maybe, but you've got enough to worry about right now, Desmond. You don't need this."_

_ "Are you kidding? I've got nothing going on anymore. I feel like Ezio, after his first visit to the Vatican. 'My battles have already been won'. I got all the time in the world, Lucy. So don't worry about me. I'm fine."_

_ Lucy smiled again. "You know, I wish more than anything that we hadn't come together under such harsh circumstances."_

_ "Why so?" asked Desmond, rubbing her hand with his thumb._

_ "Because maybe things would have turned out differently."_

_ "I don't know," said Desmond thoughtfully. "I don't think we could have asked for a better outcome... given how harsh the circumstances were."_

_ Lucy seemed satisfied with this. "And then there's that."_


	5. The Resort

The first thing he thought of as he swung the door shut behind him was, _It's damn cold out._

He'd never liked being cold. It was (one of) the reasons he wore a sweater of some kind everywhere he went. In New York, though, it wasn't too hard to get by with. It was usually cool enough outside to make a sweater plausible at any time of the year.

"Hi, there," he responded to a guest as they passed him – on their way to their room, he guessed.

The spa itself wasn't exactly large. There were five buildings, with two dedicated to housing, one for the various services, and two more for the staff's usage. As the night watchman, Desmond was usually in the main house. Recently, however (according to the other employees), there would be more for him to do besides what he was already doing.

He shivered and pulled his sweater in a little tighter around him as he reached the front door. He was pretty sure it was colder inside. Immediately to his right were the stairs leading down into the basement. It struck him as odd, because the doors that were touted as the main entrance lead to a pretty neat sitting room, and a person would have to see a lot more of the spa to get to the front desk. It was quite a nice place, Desmond thought, as he greeted the lady he was relieving and set his things down at one of the desks in the front room.

In the main building, there were two lounges, each with a fireplace and one with a TV. The dining room was painted a very light white color, with some red and golden seasonal decorations around it. Each table was set by the number of seats available and there were two windows to give them a view of the pond and the services building, respectively. Just outside that were two tables set with coffee, snacks, and tea. A large bowel of popcorn was out every night Desmond had worked there so far, and that was for the movie viewers in the lounge with the TV. Even the front office was very appealing. A high desk with some cool odds and ends set on it was the foreground for an extremely organized office that the staff frequently conducted themselves from.

The second building was just an extension of extra rooms, but Desmond couldn't help thinking it was one of the spa's more interesting features, and that the rooms in it were a bit homier. There were only five, which would help out quite a bit to create a more ideal getaway... At least, in his mind. His only duties out there were to go and lock the doors up at some point after midnight, once he was certain all the guests out there were turned in for the night. He'd been in there a few times, such as when he took a class in that building offered there by the two friends that had introduced him to the resort. It was a nice place, as well, with a big kitchen and two bathrooms, one on each floor. He always felt extra relaxed out there, and was quite glad he didn't have too much on his list of responsibilities to do there because he was certain it would make him tired.

The final building meant for guests held the salon, exercise rooms, Energy work, massage, pool, and lockers for the in-between times. These buildings were usually the busiest during the day, for obvious reasons, but at night, Desmond was thankful for how quiet and peaceful they tended to be. He didn't have a whole lot on his list for out here so much as he had things that took a bit of time, but something about them felt nice for him. It might be because this was where he associated his friends with, or because it was just generally the brightest and cheeriest part of the spa, he found. It also held yet another of the more interesting features of the place, and that was the tunnel. Connecting this building and the main house was an underground tunnel, made of concrete in case there was ever a fire in one building or the other. Once during a storm, Desmond and the other guests had all run for the tunnel to wait it out. Fortunately, no one was hurt and nothing in, on, around, or at the spa was damaged, but at the time, his parents had been staying there. For some silly reason, being watched at work by his parents felt a bit embarrassing...

The other two buildings were much smaller, but that was probably a good thing, in the end – they were for staff use, primarily the night watch shift. The first one was pretty much just a large garage, and it was from this building that the maintenance team operated most of the time. Desmond had been out there a grand total of twice, and he really couldn't comment on it.

_It's for the workers_, he thought, with a shrug, as he settled down behind the front desk to look over the list of guests – see who's in what room and where...

The last building was similar to the maintenance garage, but it was the smallest, and housed the place's generator. It was also used as a garbage/recycling storage center (with the recycling containers kept outside in full view of everyone, of course) and an unofficial break room. The regular night watchman smoked out there, but Desmond had limited physical tolerance for smoking... especially since the debacles with the Animus and all the physical things he did, now. It had actually been one of the factors that had convinced him not to go back to the bar. That, and having to explain exactly where he went to would've been... well, awkward...

If there was one perk about this, it was easy work for a bit of extra money, and Desmond was a night person, so he didn't have to worry a whole lot about falling asleep or anything. A couple of nights, he felt lethargic and worn out, but adaptability was something else he'd personally improved on since the Animus. Lucy's time schedules had been almost completely random, or so it had seemed at the time. Most of them required him to get up early, which was a big downside, because at the bar, too, he had worked nights frequently.

He shook his head as he remembered those days. He missed them so much sometimes. He wondered what he'd been thinking when he'd started to feel tired and bitter with the work. Things seemed so much simpler back then...

_But probably anybody would think so_, he thought as he looked to the clock for the first of what would ultimately become a billion times before the night was out... _Beautiful boss, fantastic coworkers, fairly easy to get laid..._ (his mind flashed to Lucy)_ ...easy-enough work, and a discount for going out there off the job just to hang out with friends or girls..._

He shook his head again and checked the clock once more – 8:12p.m., only two minutes more than what it had said... well... two minutes ago.

Desmond liked his work there, he really did, but thinking of Lucy at home and how upset she had looked about him going made it harder to enjoy than usual. It wasn't helping him accomplish either of his goals – giving her reasons to have sex or stay with him. At least he could text her, he was pretty sure she'd like that... But he was so spaced out tonight, though, that it wasn't till he got his phone out to send her a message that he looked through his contacts and realized she either didn't have a phone or he didn't have her number. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen any phones – cell or otherwise – in her hand since she'd arrived...

* * *

11:59p.m. In just one minute, it would officially be time to go out on his rounds. Soon, he would be passing a couple of hours or slightly less till he could get back to Lucy...

The beginning was collecting the trash in the main house: the office, the front desk, the secretary's office, the staff bathroom, the guest bathroom, the lounges, the kitchen, the official main entrance, and the dining room. Depending on the kind of night it was, this took Desmond anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour. It was definitely going to be a half hour that night...

Next, he would go into each lounge and sweep up any popcorn dropped, as well as straighten up the furniture. Then it was off to the dining room to clear any tables that weren't done and sweep up the popcorn there. A conveniently-set door would always remind him how much harder it _could_ be if he'd had to go around the corner and trudge down the hall to get into the kitchen. _That_ door _was_ pretty helpful for the next task, however – clearing the coffee and snack tables away. Desmond always munched on a few of them – usually the dates left sitting out – whenever he walked by that way... And, of course, if there were any other small messes that needed cleaning up, he'd do it.

But finally, there came the most fun of all: checking the water bottles... and changing the water bottles, if needed. Although the regular night man had made it sound like a dull drudgery, Desmond had found it to be one of those small details in life that one can learn to enjoy, or to just take some comfort from being a part of the schedules. And the schedules usually went that at least the one in the dining room would need changed. Lucy had called that tendency of his "obsessive". He'd always rolled his eyes in response, albeit half-playfully...

The final thing to do was to collect the dirty laundry from outside the guests' rooms and exchange it with clean laundry for them to use the next day. It was a simple and enjoyably-quiet process after such things as climbing on buildings and stabbing people, but it was hard because it required him to be quiet. Stealth was nothing new to him, even before the Animus, but in these halls, it was so creaky, being quiet was a miracle. He was certain it would be easier to climb, but there were no footholds, and one of the owner's cameras was set at the end of the hallway, where it would be able to see everything he did.

_And that would _not_ be an easy or fun conversation..._ he lamented in his mind as he set the last of the replacement outfits down outside the last door.

Next, he'd have to run the laundry down in the basement of the main building, and the difficulty of _this_ task was always determined by how much laundry there was to run. The washing machine was extremely old in this room, and if it wasn't packed as tight as it could be, the frame would get banged and dented by the rotating drum inside it. So, if there was not enough to put in it but just enough to justify a load, it meant bringing the laundry out to the services building or the secondary house. It wasn't much fun doing either, because it would require dragging a large bag of laundry around. But, it was the only challenge Desmond ever had on the job, and it almost never occurred. At least, not so far...

And that was pretty much it for the main house. Over in the services building, it was a bit more extensive, in a certain way. The first thing people would be greeted with when they first entered there was the salon door right in front of them, but that was always the second thing on Desmond's list of to-dos when he got out to the barn. First, he would turn up to the right and go up the stairs to the studios – tech and barn. There was trash to be collected here, as well, and a water bottle in each one. Desmond also liked these rooms, because they were fantastically-designed.

The tech studio held the exercise equipment, like treadmills and bikes. One of his favorite coworkers managed the fitness department from here, and she left her cheery, upbeat Energy behind her when she left. He couldn't help thinking it was too bad she was married when he first met her... The barn studio was on the third and last level, and it was where the more physically-challenging exercise was usually conducted. Large yoga balls and dumbbells lined the rooms. Sometimes, Desmond liked to go up there and stare out the huge window at the parking lot. If he was particularly cold, he'd just take the tunnel from the main building to the services building and look out at the parking lot from there.

Once, he'd even begun to sing out loud there, which he sometimes did to make himself feel better about being so lonely... a habit he'd discovered, picked up, and kept from when Lucy and Gary had started going out together...

The salon was the most colorful area of the building, and it was there Desmond would head next. There was a water bottle here and garbage to take out. Although the night man himself had told Desmond he didn't have to take out the garbage, Desmond still did – the director of the resort had shown him around the place and given him a quick description of what to do for the time being the night he'd first gotten the job, and she'd collected the trash... so he assumed that that meant the rules might be different for him than they were for the man who'd been working this gig there for six years...

From the salon's back door (or the one that was attached to the interior, anyway), Desmond could go into either the pool area or the men's locker room. He usually went into the pool first. It was a heated pool and the room around it was made mostly out of glass. Fundamentally, he supposed some people would call it a weak point in security, because glass could easily be broken, and there was no alarm system in place... or rather, there wasn't an alarm system in place _yet_, anyway... But, Desmond also liked it in here because it was beautiful to look out of, and if he hadn't been singing already, he'd be singing now. All he had to do in this area as a general rule was cover the pool once all the guests were done with it. Recently, a few of the others involved in the maintenance and upkeep of the spa had added a few things to his list, and that meant wash and fold the laundry. Of the two washers and dryers, one was in here, found in a room off to the side as one went from the pool to the lockers.

Attached here was also a jacuzzi. There was pretty much nothing Desmond had done in here. He vaguely remembered the night man telling him something about breakers in case of a power outage, but since the instructions were written down in the maintenance checkpoint room that was holding the laundry equipment for this building, he didn't remember what it was at the moment.

In the men's locker room, there was a steam room and a sauna to check, a valve that had to be run for a minute or two in the closet, and sometimes a container of towels to empty out and wash. Not a whole lot.

Most of the guests were women, though, so it took a bit more to accomplish the same tasks in their locker room. Once, he'd accidentally walked into the room to find of the women showering there... even after he'd knocked and yelled into it. Far from being upset, however, she had been staying for a week and told him she'd been watching him. She'd given him head and then let him go without telling anyone – or so he assumed, as he'd never heard a word about it from anybody else working or staying there, and he certainly hadn't lost his job over it. It brought a grin to his face every time he thought of it. He needed things like that every once in a while, simply because the number of times they'd happened at the bar made regular sex feel sometimes boring. Or rather, as boring as sexual encounters can be...

_Now I know where my charms came from, anyway..._ he thought as he grinned to himself and remembered Ezio, switching the light off on his way out of the women's locker room...

In the Energy room next door, there was just a waste can to empty. This was where his friends worked. He'd become friends with them shortly after moving into his apartment on an afternoon he'd gone to a doctor of alternative, Eastern-type medicine to see what he could learn about it – something the Indian heritage he had gotten from Connor had inspired for him. And although the work his friends did originated in Japan, he still enjoyed it, and so had taken the class to learn how to do it.

_Wonder what Lucy would think of it_, he thought as he tied a new garbage bag back into the can.

Next, it was all to be taken out to the generator room, and he'd be back in an hour to check the laundry in the pool area. Simple stuff.

The tunnel was cool, because even it was decorated with a few pictures and things of that nature, though it echoed so much that Desmond had to move more carefully along it in case there was a guest staying in the room right at the end of it, in the main house.

But, he didn't have a reason to use it now, because the garbage had to be taken out to the generator building and the main house was right up the path from there. As he dumped the trash into the big, green cans, he looked up at the clock that hung over the door. 2:00p.m... He was thinking of rearranging some of the things on his schedule so that he could have more of it done earlier... just because it would be nice to have the time off of his feet towards the end of the night. It would also help him to get more laundry done...

* * *

4:45a.m. brought with it the sound of footsteps to the front desk, where Desmond had just returned after changing the very last load of laundry. The footsteps belonged to the maintenance manager, and he always greeted Desmond with a polite "good morning" that Desmond returned sincerely, if mechanically.

_If that makes any sense_, he thought as he began to collect his things. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be off shift until 6a.m., but the director had told him that it would be alright to go home as soon as he had touched base with the maintenance manager. _And it's not my fault if he touches base with me more than an hour earlier than six._ Nobody had ever complained about it before...

So, with that in mind, Desmond headed out the front door and down the path toward his car. Or rather, the car his father had given him – without implying ownership, Desmond cynically, if probably unnecessarily, assumed. It hadn't been a bad night, but there really hadn't been such a thing out there. His car started and the heat rolling, Desmond was off down the road in just a few minutes' time... back towards Lucy. The thought of her brought the memory of the woman in the shower of the locker rooms... Unconsciously, the memory kept repeating itself in his mind, but each time she looked up at him, he saw Lucy's face, instead...


	6. Relief

When Desmond got home, he found a plate of food sitting on the table, with a note.

_Desmond,_

_I thought you might be hungry when you got back. Wake me up before you go to sleep. I want to see you._

_ -Lucy_

He smiled and set the note aside. Behind it, she had left him a beautiful spread from the breakfast-for-dinner he had missed. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and even a couple of waffles. The sight of it made him so desperate to see her, he momentarily considered ignoring it to go wake her up. But he realized that might be hurtful, and since he was actually pretty hungry, he ate it first. Immediately after it was done, he brushed his teeth and headed for the bedroom. Since Lucy wasn't asleep on his couch, he assumed she'd gone to sleep in his bed.

He was right.

He leaned against the doorway and took the sight of her in with a slight grin still in his expression. She was sleeping on her side, like she usually did, facing his side of the bed with her arm out and her legs curled together. His smile widened, and he shrugged out of all but his boxer-briefs before joining her there.

Just as he reached out to shake her awake, he noticed a piece of paper clutched in her hand that made him suspicious. Head cocked somewhat to the side and eyes narrowed, he tested the strength of her grip on it. Disappointingly, it was quite tight.

Deciding to just ask her what it was instead, he whispered, "Lucy," and shook her arm very softly.

She stirred a bit, but didn't wake up. His smile returned.

"Lucy," he tried again. "Lucy, wake up. I'm back."

This time, she stirred a bit more, stretched, and finally, opened her big, beautiful, blue eyes. They lit up a bit when she saw him.

"Desmond?"

"Yeees?"

Immediately, her arms flung up around his neck. "You're back."

"I am," he said, returning her embrace. "And thank you... for the beautiful breakfast."

"Did you like it?" she asked into his neck.

"I did. All my favorite things for breakfast on one plate..." he hesitated to say the next thing, but decided he had nothing to lose, going by this reception – so, he put his scarred lips by her ear and dropped his voice a little lower, "...all made for me by my favorite person."

Her grip tightened on him and she kissed his shoulder. A few moments of silence fell between them, but this time comfortably, instead of awkwardly. It was Desmond's favorite way to spend time with her, actually... Even moreso than sex. Or, at least, so far... They hadn't had a lot of sex yet.

"How was work tonight, Desmond?"

"Slow."

"As in, draggy or peaceful?"

"Both. I wanted to get home..."

She pulled back from his shoulder, looked up at him, and began stroking the side of his face with her index finger. "Really? And why's that?"

He leaned a little closer and dropped his voice a bit lower. "I think you know why."

Suddenly, it was just like it was the night she first showed up. A fire of some sort exploded between them. Lucy crashed her lips up against Desmond's, pushing him backward almost off the bed. He caught himself on the side table, but she pulled back to apologize. Desmond didn't want an apology for this – he wanted to enjoy it, and her to do the same. So he muffled her apology by kissing her back.

Her arms found their way back around his neck at the same time as his wrapped around her torso and pulled her up closer against him. She began to kiss her way down his neck and chest, headed downwards for a little breakfast of her own...

Desmond had forgotten how much better this felt when it was from a woman he loved – that it made all the difference in the world. The entire time, he gripped the blankets and moaned and encouraged her in any way he could think of. And she gripped his hand with one of hers, gripped his shaft with the other, and smiled up at him in the sweetest of ways he could ever remember seeing. Even if it was just an act – just something she was doing because she'd heard men liked it, or something – he appreciated it all the same, and stroked the side of her face as lovingly as he could ever remember doing to any woman, any time...

When it was over, the kiss they shared was somehow different from all the others, too. It lacked the usual fire or formality. It felt more like a romantic kiss.

The taste of it... of ALL of it... was still on Desmond's lips when he fell asleep with her head on his chest. He was a contented man, if ever there was one, and for the first time he could think of, he felt completely confident that she was happy with him, too...

He'd almost forgotten the piece of paper...


	7. Confusion

"_Desmond?"_

_ He looked up at the sound of his name, more involuntarily than anything else, and saw that it was Gary. Reflecting briefly on his promise to Lucy, he smiled and offered him a seat._

_ "Haven't seen you around for a while," continued Gary. "Where ya been?"_

_ "I was... why?"_

_ "Last night, you weren't at the party, so I wondered..."_

_ Desmond blinked and raised his eyebrows. "There was a party last night?"_

_ "Sure was! Boy, you shoulda seen it! It was amazing. Rebecca threw it, and–"_

_ "–then you just hit on why I wasn't there," interrupted Desmond._

_ Gary's brow furrowed. "What? Rebecca?"_

_ "Yeah," said Desmond, turning the page of the strange magazine he'd picked up. "Rebecca's not too fond of me."_

_ "What? Why not?"_

_ Desmond shrugged and closed the magazine. "You tell me," he replied as he tossed it lightly back into its pile. "I'm still a bit lost on it, myself. She'd always been nice when I was on the Animus Team..."_

_ "Maybe she was just worried about Lucy?" suggested Gary._

_ Desmond couldn't help smiling. "I hope so. I don't know, though. She seems to like you a lot, so she shouldn't have anymore complaints."_

_ Gary looked away, somewhat uncomfortably._

_ Desmond's smile faded a bit. "What?"_

_ "Well... I mean... I guess so..."_

_ "No, come on, tell me," pressed Desmond._

_ "I just... you know, was thinking... yeah, but before I was even there, why was she nice to you then?"_

_ Desmond paused and tried to understand this. "...Huh?" he eventually asked._

_ "I mean, if she had a problem with you hooking up with Lucy, she should've been on guard back then. It kinda got me thinkin'..."_

_ "...thinkin'... what?"_

_ "What if she doesn't like _me_ and she's mad at you for not... I don't know, saving Lucy from me, or something."_

_ Upon hearing this, Desmond was torn by three emotions. His initial reaction was to just laugh – it almost sounded like Gary was just making this up. But once that thought occurred, he was irritated by Gary's pretension again. And because of that, he was tempted to reach out and box him one in the jaw._

_ But instead, he settled for, "I don't think so. Doesn't sound like Rebecca. She's too straightforward for that kind of thing. She's openly rude to me all the time now. This is the third time I've not been invited to go out with the group."_

_ "Oh, yeah, you missed the movie and the dinner from last week, didn't you?"_

_ "Yes."_

_ A look of sincerity Desmond didn't think could even inhabit Gary's face took over his expression. "That's not right."_

_ Momentarily softened, Desmond shrugged again. "I guess not, but... well, that's life. Sometimes."_

_ "It doesn't have to be," answered Gary, turning to look out the window with a glare on his face. "I tell you what, from now on, when I find out about something that's going on, I'll invite you myself. Deal?"_

_ He held his hand out for Desmond to shake again. Desmond gritted his teeth behind his closed lips and reached out slowly to take it... He hoped Gary hadn't noticed the hesitation._

_ "Alright, sounds good!" exclaimed Gary with a rigorous handshake. "So..."_

_ Desmond's grin was genuine as he leaned back on the couch he was in and waited for Gary to continue._

_ "...you've known Lucy a while."_

_ Desmond's face became noticeably less friendly._

_ Gary still didn't seem to notice. "Can you tell me anything about her that might... you know, help me?"_

_ "Help you with what?"_

_ "I don't know, just... anything. What does she like to do?"_

_ "Work, I assume. That's mostly all we've done since I met her."_

_ "She never mentioned anything? Anything about fun?"_

_ Desmond jutted his lower lip out. "Well, she _did_ promise she'd show me that she knew how to have fun once we were through saving the world..."_

_ "Really?" asked Gary enthusiastically. "What did she mean?"_

_ "I have no clue. It happened back in Monteriggioni. That's all she said."_

_ "What about when..." Gary dropped his voice to a whisper, "you know... _the_ night?"_

_ Too intrigued to maintain his off-putting demeanor (and what good was it doing, anyway), Desmond leaned forward. "'The night'?" he repeated._

_ "Yeah... When she was first... back, and it turned out she hadn't died?"_

_ Desmond paused and looked at the stack of magazines again. It was a long silence..._

_ "I'm sorry, man," Gary finally said. "Sorry, that's... private, isn't it?"_

_ Desmond looked up. "Private? How so?"_

_ "Well, didn't you guys spend that night together?"_

_ Desmond snickered. "Not the way you be might thinking. I couldn't get _that_ lucky."_

_ Gary looked doubtful. He leaned back into the chair and folded his arms across his chest, smiling at Desmond with a grin that couldn't have been communicating "bullshit" any harder if it tried._

_ "No, really, we didn't," insisted Desmond. "Yeah, we slept together and kept... well, close, I guess is the way to describe it. But, no, we didn't do it."_

_ "I'll ask her about it, I bet she tells me."_

_ He nudged Desmond with his elbow. But by this point, Desmond was having trouble maintaining his temper._

_ So, to end the discussion (and the pictures of _Gary_ having sex with Lucy that were running through his mind), all he said to that was, "I bet she does..."_

* * *

It was too comfortable to even dream of moving when Desmond woke up. But, unfortunately, when work called, there was nothing else for it. Lucy had gotten up awhile ago, it looked, and when Desmond drug himself out to the living room, it was to see her writing something to somebody on his laptop.

Her eyes lit up again when she noticed him. "Good mor– er..." (she checked his computer clock) afternoon, Desmond!"

She was out of the chair and to him in a second. He felt a little dazed by her happy and attentive attitude as-of-late. Wasn't used to it, he assumed.

"Sleep well?"

There was a sly smile on her face as she poked the end of his nose for a moment and drug him over to the couch.

He almost didn't want to sit back down. "Sure did, mi'lady."

She pressed on him a bit, and he gave in – he sank to his back and laid comfortably there.

"Are you trying to put me back to sleep?" he asked with a deep sigh.

"Of course not," she replied.

Her hand traced his mustache and beard. They were quiet for a long time, just looking at each other...

"Want to come with me to work?"

She raised her eyebrows. "What?"

"Tonight, when I go back to the resort, do you want to come with me?"

"You mean... I can do that?" she asked incredulously.

Desmond clicked his tongue. "Don't know. But I'm thinking we're going to do it, anyway."

"Well, I'd... like to know for sure," she said.

"Why? Nobody's ever there at night. The guests aren't going to know who you are. Just hang out in one of the lounges till they go to bed, then I'll give you the tour of the place."

"And if you're seen on camera, and fired?" she asked. "What then?"

"Then, I tell my parents I was seen on camera and fired."

Lucy sighed an exasperated sigh, but her smile was unchanged. "Mommy and daddy can't take care of everything for you."

"Says who?" whispered Desmond, raising his head and kissing her jawline.

"Says the laws of society."

"Mm hmm," was all Desmond answered with as his kisses trailed down to her neck. "I saved society. So if society doesn't like it, then society can suck my dick."

"Oh," said Lucy, head turned slightly to the side. "Is that your new philosophy?"

Desmond let his head fall back to rest on the couch. "Pretty much. Since last night."

She glared comically. "Unfortunately, society's a bit bigger than that."

"Says who?" repeated Desmond.

She was stuck on that one. After looking between his eyes for a moment, she just put her head down on his chest. "Nobody, I guess."

He lifted one hand to rub her back with. She exhaled comfortably. They laid there like that for what might have been anything from a minute to an hour. Desmond lost track.

"Come with me," he finally said. "Please."

"Oh, alright," she answered in false irritation. "I'll come. But first, I have to finish sending this email."

She climbed off him, and he sat up. "Email?"

"Yes, I've got an email from Shaun."

Inwardly, Desmond was seriously considering ripping the laptop from her. He thought he might be able to pass it off as aggressive foreplay. Maybe pretend he was tired of her being all about business and attack her.

He chickened out, though. _Maybe later_, he tried to convince himself. "What does Shaun want?"

"He wants to apologize for Rebecca and for not having come to see me yet. He's excited, though. He asks how you're doing, too."

With a nod, Desmond trailed away into the kitchen. A bag of granola was sitting there. He yanked it open with a bit more force than necessary as the clicking of keyboard keys resumed behind him.

_I wonder what Rebecca even does to keep Shaun around?_ he wondered. _She must be an extremely different person with him... I mean, _extremely_ different..._

His mind flashed across the letter from Mrs. Stillman. He'd promised to contact her whenever he'd next seen Lucy. He'd talked to her a few times since then, actually. He thought for a while that she might've almost been a better friend than Lucy. She certainly kept in better touch.

_Until last night, I guess..._ he thought. _No way would Mrs. Stillman have done _that_._

He was still trying to savor his treat from last night with anything he could. He had a feeling it might not happen again for a while. Lucy seemed to be that type. She'd dive in and then out as soon as she had her fill, and then she was perfectly comfortable just going on about her business without worrying about it. Desmond groaned as he thought about it. What if it took her longer than a week to decide she wanted some kind of sexual contact this time?

_Maybe she'll be happier because I did better this time._

But he knew it probably didn't matter. One thing she _had_ told him before, she wasn't a sex expert, and she didn't know everything there was to know about it What if she didn't know the difference?

At a college party of sorts once, Desmond had snuck off into one of the back rooms with one of the girls there, and initially, it really had been his intention just to talk to her. She had other plans, of course, but she did teach him quite a bit of interesting things about women. For example, their expectations usually weren't all that high. An asshole might just use that to his advantage without a second thought or a backward glance, though Desmond liked to think he wasn't typically an asshole. But the memory _did_ make him wonder if Lucy, being something of a skeptic, wouldn't be able to know the difference between a good lay and a bad lay. Did women do that?

Prior to losing to her mind, Rebecca had once hinted in Monteriggioni that, sometimes... they did.

* * *

"Are you absolutely sure we should be doing this?"

"Lucy."

"Because if you get fired because of me, I'm going to feel terrible."

"Lucy."

"No, really, Des–"

"Lucy Stillman!"

She ducked her head and sighed. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry. I really am excited, though."

"Yeah, I bet you are." He grinned and leaned back a bit in his chair. His arm found its way around her. "It's a really nice place."

"I've seen the pictures," she replied, leaning against him.

The pictures weren't quite enough to prepare her for the actual sight. She sat up straight as Desmond turned into the driveway a few minutes later. Her eyes darted all over the place.

"Wow..." she breathed.

Somehow, her being impressed by his place of work brought a grin to his face. That grin remained there as they got out of the car and he took her hand and led her up the pathway to the front door.

"Holy shit," she whispered.

The rug they were following was a brilliant green color, with golden decoration thread woven into the edges of it. As they reached the edge, she bent down and ran her fingers through the tassels.

"Perfectly clean," she said with a sigh. "Reminds me of home..."

As she stood up, he tightened his arm around her.

"I haven't thought about them in a long time now," she continued as they rounded the corner ahead of them. "I wonder what my Mom's been doing..."

They passed the lobby and were smiled at by a couple of the guests Desmond recognized. He returned the favor, but Lucy didn't seem to notice them.

"I remember the house we lived in. It was on Elm Street. My older brother used to joke about Freddie Kruger almost constantly. Halloween was a nightmare. You know, more of a nightmare than usual..."

She was smiling again, and it brought a smile to his own face. He clocked in and looked at her every few seconds, hoping she would divulge a few clues.

"His name is Kevin, so my other brother used to call him Kevin Kruger. Just wait till they were old enough to know what 'gay' meant... The jokes never stopped about how Kevin must've been in love with Freddie Kruger."

She seemed to think it was hilarious, but Desmond couldn't help thinking it was a little lame. Nevertheless, he kept his expression in place as they rounded the corner again and were behind the desk. The lady he was taking over for bid him goodnight as she walked by. He waved, but his mind was fixed on Lucy's family as she went on with her stories...

Suddenly, it seemed like her environment had caught up with her. She looked around. The office was a hallway from behind the front desk. There were several smaller desks up against the wall. Up ahead of her was a TV screen showing the camera footage. It was here her attention locked. Desmond leaned back in his chair and propped his arms up behind his head. She slid somewhat automatically into the rolling, rotating chair in front of it.

"Wow..." She leaned forward on her elbows a bit. "Cool. We really should have invested in something like this with the Assassins. And in Abstergo, I never got to see the monitoring bay."

Desmond's eyebrows came together as his arms folded across his chest. "How did you rig them, then?"

She looked back with a twinge of guilt visible on her face. "I didn't. Remember?"

"Oh. Right..."

She smiled the same awkward smile she usually did whenever someone brought up her betrayals. It hadn't been a comfortable subject of conversation at all. She had apologized more than Desmond had ever heard anyone apologize. He appreciated it, but he didn't think they all did. He remained convinced that William had seriously considered not forgiving her, or even killing her.

The thought of it made his teeth grind. He had tried to give his dad more of a chance this time. But he couldn't escape some of his past memories, and as such, he hung around behind Lucy a lot back then. She had become irritated by it, to an extent. She'd never showed it outright, but her subtleties were usually transparent. How she had lied to them all about such a major thing in the first place was a mystery to him. He wondered if she actually had... Sometimes, it seemed like she was just punishing herself for things that had nothing to do with her. Like... she felt she was at the center of everything that was wrong with the world.

_Nobody else worried about me so much in the Animus..._

But that could've been because nobody else cared. Then again, why was Shaun asking about him? Perhaps it was Rebecca...

* * *

Lucy didn't moved from the camera bay for a while. Desmond attended to several of the guests' various needs. Occasionally, somebody came by and asked for something. Lucy would jump right up and get it if she knew where it was. Actually, she'd even taught Desmond where a few things were. He was just looking forward to taking her around the resort for the rounds at night. There were only eight or nine cameras around the place so far, and they didn't cover everything there was to see, not by a long shot. So, when midnight came around, he roused her from her chair and they set off down the hall.

The first lounge was largely wooden. There were chairs lining it and a variety of lamps. Against the back wall was a bookshelf. Desmond had sometimes looked through them to see what was there. Mostly crimes and thrillers. Not exactly his idea of a comfortable, relaxing book at a homey spa getaway, but hell...

"I remember this book," said Lucy. "It's about two sisters, and how one of them is dating an abusive man. Her sister wants her to leave him, and she doesn't. He eventually kills her, and her spirit talks to her sister kind of subtly. It's... interesting."

"Yeah," was all Desmond responded with as he switched each of the lights off. "I read the back of it."

"She has such a great writing style, and this is one of her first books," continued Lucy.

"I didn't know you were a reader, Luce," he said, head cocked to the side.

She turned the top half of her body to him as she slid the book back onto its shelf. "I told you in Abstergo."

He frowned. "What? When?"

She began stepping slowly towards him. "I asked you if you've ever read Chaucer."

"That doesn't mean you're a 'reader', technically," he said.

"Chaucer's pretty complicated stuff," she replied, her arms going up around his neck.

"Mm hmm," he said as he leaned down to kiss her. "If you say so, Lucy."

"I do." She poked his nose. "Come on, I think it's clean enough in here."

And so, they headed just down the hall to the next lounge. Or, at least, that's what he assumed, based on the look of shock that came to her face when he pushed the door to his left open and pulled her inside quite suddenly. He was laughing as the door swung shut behind him and he flipped the switch on. She blinked against the bright lights.

"What the hell?" she asked. "Warn me, at least, next time, you bastar– mm..."

He had pressed his lips up against hers again. He pulled back and brushed some of her hair out of the way.

She checked his forehead. "Are you alright?"

"Quite," he said, pecking her lips once more before strutting to the other door leading to the dining room.

He felt her eyes on him as he unlocked the door and pushed it open into the dining room. A bowl of popcorn and several smaller bowls of fruit were sitting out.

"Cookies!" he whispered joyfully, seizing one and all-but throwing it into his mouth. "Here, take one. They go to waste if you don't..."

She had been just simply smiling at him up to that point, but it faded to an expression of nervousness – the one that she wore so frequently.

"Here," he pressed, shaking the one he was holding out to her.

Her eyes flitted between his for a moment, and she took it. "Thank you."

He grinned back honestly... innocently. "Sure."

Without another moment's hesitation, he gathered up the unused popcorn and some spray-on butter. As he passed her into the kitchen, he felt like something was different about her... As they wound their way through the rest of the first building, she was certainly quieter.

When they came to the salon front door and saw into the window in it, she gripped his arm suddenly and shivered. "Ooh. What happened in there?"

Desmond looked from her to the door. "Nothing. That's the salon."

"It feels... strange."

"Yeah, that's what the manager says. It's a nice place, though. We're not going in there yet, though. We're going up these stairs to the studios."

"Studios?" she asked as they began their ascent.

"Yeah, it's where they do their exercises and classes. The first one..." (he pushed the door open and held it there for her) "...holds all the treadmills and bikes and things."

She ran her eyes appraisingly over the room. Desmond passed her and climbed up to the office hanging above it, checking for garbage. There was almost always a ton of health bar wrappers in the fitness manager's garbage can. He rolled his eyes and began to dump it into the bag he'd brought from the first building.

As they left that room, Lucy leaned back into him again. He wrapped one arm around her and didn't let go as they reached the top of the stairs and into the second studio. This room was darker and larger than usual. Desmond looked down into the basket sitting by the door and saw it was full of sweat rags. He sighed irritatedly and grabbed them.

"Here, I'll take this," said Lucy.

"No, no, no..."

"Oh, Desmond, don't do that. Just let me help."

He shook his head with some exasperation. "Okay. Whatever..."

She winked and punched his arm.

They made their way down the stairs and came to the salon door. Lucy stood behind Desmond and he raised his eyebrows at her once as he pushed the door open. From behind him, he heard her inhale.

"It smells good in here!" she exclaimed.

"Sure does," replied Desmond. "Damn it! The water bottle needs changed."

While he pulled everything out, she took the garbage bag and began grabbing everything up. Desmond looked at her out of the corner of his eye and shook his head.

"Maybe they should have hired YOU," he said.

"Maybe so!" called Lucy from down the hall. "Wow! Who decorated this place!?"

"Don't know!"

"They did a fantastic job!"

"Uh... I guess!" replied Desmond with a shrug.

He heard her laugh in response. "Where does this garbage go!?"

"Just a second!"

He set the old water bottle down outside the door and followed the hall down to Lucy, who was waiting by the back door with the garbage bag. He pulled the door open and they were faced with the pool room straight ahead and the men's lockers to their left.

"The garbage goes inside that room," he pointed ahead. But as she began walking towards it, he took her arm and pulled her back to him. "Hold up, honey. First, I get the garbage from everywhere else."

"Like this one?" she said, bending down and emptying the small can next to the pool water bottle.

"Yes. Like that one."

They turned and edged their way into the men's locker room.

"Nobody's here," Desmond reassured her. "The guests are all women. And old. And I bet asleep."

It was quite a long locker room. There was a bathroom right next to them and a sauna across from that. The showers were in between the sauna and the steam room, and right across from them was a sink and a mirror.

"Wow," said Lucy for the thousandth time. "Is this real?"

Desmond chuckled and opened the sauna. "Yes, it is. No towels..."

"'No towels'?"

"Yeah, sometimes they leave towels here."

"In the sauna?" asked Lucy. "That's nice of them."

"Oh, yeah. Check the steam room, will you? If you insist on helping..."

She nodded and pulled the door open. "It's still on?"

"Yeah, it might be." He walked over and pulled the door open.

She was bent over, looking for towels on the bench and floor. His eyes caught on her, watching her feeling around on the tile... He slid his shoes off and edged up behind her. As he reached her, she stood up and he felt her jump a bit as he put his arms around her.

"Find anything?" he asked softly.

"Uuuhhh... Desmond?"

"Lucy?"

She turned slowly in his arms and looked at him. He was beginning to sweat, and when she was face-to-face with him, he could see she was, too. He followed it down her neck. Just before it disappeared under her blouse, he kissed it off her. She moaned slightly and put a hand on the back of his own neck.

"Here...? In the men's stream room? Where you work?"

"Yes."

"What if somebody comes?"

Desmond began kissing his way up her neck. "They won't."

"What if somebody needs you?"

"They won't."

"How do you know?"

Desmond stood up straight and looked her right in the eye. "Lucy, I don't care. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of being all-business. Tired of worrying about everyone else. I'm not exactly a selfless person– "

She snorted.

"Oh, ha, ha, ha," he said, rolling his eyes. "The point is... stop worrying about it. We're saved. The world is going to live. Now, let's enjoy ourselves. Besides, getting caught in the men's steam room is hardly the worst thing we'd ever live through if it were to happen. And I'm telling you..." he bent down and kissed her cheek, "...it won't."

She considered this while he watched more of her sweat run down her neck. And all of a sudden, she looked up at him.

"Alright," she said, stroking her thumb down his cheek as a couple of tears ran down hers. "Alright, that sounds good."

Desmond raised his own hands and placed them gently underneath her chin. "Relax, okay? We'll find your family."

She furrowed her brow. "How did you– "

"–I just did."

He crashed his lips into hers. In response, she threw her arms over his shoulders and gripped him tightly. He pushed forward slightly and she stumbled back against the bench behind her. He moved a hand behind her head to protect her from being hurt – a trick he'd learned from his days at the bar. He smiled through their kisses as he sank to one of his knees and she to the bench. Their lips moved together comfortably. He slid his hand a bit down to the back of her neck and stroked it with his thumb as he poked at her lips with his tongue. She moved her own hands from his shoulders and put them to his thin beard, which she began to play with using her fingernail. He chuckled a bit and adjusted himself so that he was down on both of his knees.

The steam began to wind its way around their bodies. Desmond pulled back quickly and stood up. After looking into her eyes again, he pulled his hoodie off over his head. Lucy stood up, too, and gripped the tail of his t-shirt. She lifted it slowly and kissed his chest once before it, too, went off over his head. The sweat going down his body had increased. She threw herself up against him and recommenced their kissing. Desmond's hands slid down her back smoothly and found the buttons on her blouse. Deftly, they began to undo them. Lucy sighed and splayed her hands against his chest, picking a bit at his nipple with the end of her thumb. He leaned his head back and moaned, her mouth moving up his collarbone. The feelings were mixing together, creating a sensation that ran down his entire body.

She stepped back suddenly, and he looked at her with a slight begging expression. She smiled, her hand still on his chest, but he saw that there was still a few tears there. He stepped forward, taking her hand from his chest, and following it in for a sweeter, calmer kiss. Her smile faded into a more intense look, and she led his hands down to the bottom of her shirt, tugging upwards a bit when he locked his fingers around it. He took the hint and pulled it off of her. His eyes became hungrier for the quickest of seconds before his mouth shot down to return a bit of the favor from before.

While he did so, she leaned her head forward on his and began to undo his jeans. It took a minute or two, but she enjoyed every second of it, and soon they joined the growing pile of clothes in the corner. Lucy gripped the wall as Desmond became a bit more aggressive, backing her into the same corner that they had started from. He heard her teeth grit as she raked her fingers through his short hair. He spun her around before he raised his head and allowed her to remove his boxer-briefs. But rather than standing up after that, her lips wrapped around the tip of him. Almost involuntarily, his arms shot out and his hands caught the walls. Her happy work weakened his knees and he sank to the bench to lean back against the wall. She moaned a bit against him, and his hands played with the side of her head just like the night before... When she stood up what felt like just a few seconds later to him, she undid her own bra and slid out of her underwear. They topped off the clothes pile and without waiting even a second longer, she climbed up onto his body and slid down onto him.

As the fun began, their mouths reconnected and their sweat mingled together. Every time Desmond saw it, he was more aroused by it. The sight... The taste... Her hands on his chest. His stomach. Her legs balanced on top of him...

Slowly, but surely, he let them fall slowly onto the floor, and he reversed the roles. Her fingernails dug into his neck and his back and they moaned together while he moved. Some of Lucy's tears found their way between their lips, compelling him to comfort her by pulling her body up a bit and balancing her on his hips so that he could keep his arms wrapped tightly and unobstructed around her. She finally broke their kissing by throwing her head back and letting her own self-imposed limitations go. Desmond loved the taste of her, though, so he kept his lips to the base of her neck and moaned into her. Both the sound of his voice and the vibrations of his lips sent shivers throughout her whole body, as did the sound of her voice and the touch of her fingertips against the back of his head to him...

He suddenly pulled out and held himself out to her, this time with begging unashamedly written all over his face. And once again, she didn't wait a second. Just seconds after that, it was over. He sank from his knees to his back and laid there for a moment. He could barely see and the steam was making his whole body relaxed. He felt Lucy crawling up to his left side and in moments, her head was resting on his frantically-beating heart. He weakly raised his left hand and played a bit with her hair. His eyes wandered, and he realized the door to the men's steam room had been open the whole time...

His amused reverie was broken when he felt her kiss his nipple and began to cry. He lifted his head to look at her, then turned his body to hold her to him.

"Thank you... Desmond," she sobbed. "For... everything."

"Not a problem at all," he replied softly. He kissed the top of her head and brushed her hair with his fingertips. "Thank _you_."

He wasn't sure how much longer they laid there like that... and he didn't care...

After all the energy he'd exerted in the men's steam and locker rooms, he was tired for the rest of his time on the job. The last thing he remembered from that night for the longest time was falling asleep holding Lucy's hand on his leg in the passenger's seat of the car after it was over and time to go home.

The last thing he remembered at all from that night was collapsing into his bed on his back in his boxer-briefs and feeling her kiss him and whisper, "I'm really glad I went with you."

"Me... too," he sighed.

"Goodnight, Desmond."

"Goodnight, Lucy," he half-mumbled.

"I love you."

"I love... you, too."

And with that, his eyelids closed. From behind them, he could feel her settling in... and see the bedside lamp shutting off...


	8. Beautiful

**Just for everyone's information, I didn't forget about this story, or lose the drive to write it, or anything like that. But, I do actually work a night shift job, and it's a bit more demanding than one might think. I also work another job about an hour away from my house, so it's a long drive.**

**Also, I had some very slight struggles with figuring out what direction to take this story. Originally, I had had a completely different plan, involving Rebecca and a bit more drama in the direction of what's happening with Desmond and Lucy currently. After thinking about it, and finding a little trouble getting it to be the way I'd at first seen it, I instead figured I would write it into the flashbacks, since that type of drama is the driving force behind why I started writing that into the story, to begin with. I'd imagined that for a long time before I even started writing: what would it be like if Lucy started dating some other guy, and Desmond had to stand by and watch it? Some of this also came out of role-playing AC with various others.**

**And speaking of, there's a lot of development in this chapter for the past part of the story. The scene towards the end, with Desmond and Shaun at lunch, was definitely one of my favorite scenes to write. It was the one that had at first popped into my head when I saw this story forming about a year or two ago.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

As is customary amongst workers, Desmond made some friends and some enemies at work. With the passing weeks, he found himself inconveniently stationed behind that damn desk more and more frequently. It soon went from October to the beginning of December. It got colder out, and there was some snow fall. Part of Desmond's building-anxiety were the driving conditions. He didn't like icy roads, and neither did Lucy. Two weekends straight of being late for work meant that he would eventually have to give in and leave earlier... which he eventually did, albeit begrudgingly.

Lucy hadn't been too happy with the arrangements, but she had been reluctant to go to work with Desmond again. His old frustration was coming back. He woke up in a terrible mood some days (or nights) and often left in the same mindset. He hadn't been particularly annoyed with her – or, at least, he hadn't shown it, he didn't think – but it was beginning to take a toll on them, all the same. She spent a lot of time over at Rebecca's, and he wondered what kind of things she was hearing about him over there. Shaun had sometimes been helpful to Desmond during times like these before, but it often pissed Desmond off when he remembered this because he still hadn't actually seen Shaun.

His coworkers were, at least, understanding. His favorite past time at work was office politics, although he knew he should probably avoid them after all the trouble they had brought to him during his time with the Assassins. He often got to talk to the housekeepers before they left, and there were some instances where he almost regretted being a committed (or as close to as he thought he would ever get, given the circumstances) man. They were funny, and they liked a lot of the same things he liked. Some of them reminded him of Lila.

Something he'd always thought of as being rather stupid was Facebook. When the war had ended and the cleanup began, he'd resisted the idea of getting a Facebook almost as much as Lucy had. But, with the increasing prominence of it in society, he figured he'd eventually have to cave in on that one. Everyone else had one, so... what could it hurt?

Quite a lot, it turned out. At least... for him...

* * *

_If there was one thing Desmond had always prided himself on, it was his resistance to fads. He remembered when he'd first gotten a TV set how big a deal _SpongeBob SquarePants_ was. And then, one of his girlfriends turned out to be a big _Twilight_ fan. All of them: _Hannah Montanna_, the _Lord of the Rings_, _Harry Potter_, _Snuggies_... The whole deal. He'd been firmly "against" all of it. But none of it poked at him quite as much as the obsession with Facebook. Facebook seemed to... do things to people, and nowhere was there a better example than what it did to Lucy, when she'd finally gotten one._

_ At first, he attributed it to the almost-eight years she'd lost in her life fighting the war. People were entitled to a little R&R, right? A little stupidity, even? A little bullshit? Sure, it made sense... But after a point, he wasn't so sure if that was it._

_ Something about Facebook seemed to unleash her inner preppie. It began with just saying "lol" every once in a while – not too bad, though it did send a shiver up Desmond's spine every time he saw it. Then, she began writing in full-on web speak, especially if she was talking to Gary – a typical conversation between the two of them consisted of something like: "_good mornin babe luv u_" and then, "_hey honey, see u after work!_" to which he'd reply, _"kewl_". Desmond would then gag into his breakfast cereal._

_ But it didn't stop there. Soon, she began replacing words like "too" with "2". Then, she began double-typing vowels. Then every sentence had to end with a thousand punctuation marks. Then, every post had to contain a random number of punctuation marks combined with a random number of smilies – and not the smilies provided by Facebook, but the text smilies, like, ":)" and "XD" and ":P". Reading one of her posts eventually gave him a headache._

_ Some part of him knew he was being a stuck-up snob about it, and he probably looked a little dorky with his (attempted) proper grammar and punctuation, but he didn't care as much as he likely should have about it._

_ He was eventually convinced to get a Facebook when he found out even his parents were using it to talk to each other, although it was thankfully not in public. And that was another thing about Facebook he hated: it seemed to rob people of any want for privacy or sense of what's appropriate to share with the rest of the world. It was again Lucy who showed this the clearest to him. Nobody he'd ever known had been more private about their life and their affairs than Lucy. He didn't know Gary at all from before this, but he was pretty sure prior to Facebook, neither of them would be publishing their heavy flirting and talking dirty to each other on the site. Reading some of the conversations was beyond the point of hurting Desmond – it was just disgusting. They talked about places they wanted to try ("how doz a dark movee theater sound babe?!"; "soouunds hoot!"), ways they wanted to try it ("upsiide down!?3"; "aanyytiimee! 3333"), and reminisced about past experiences with each other ("remember our 2nd time!?"; "wee weeree sooooooooo druunk...!")._

_ The day this was posted, Desmond was sitting in the restaurant built into the Headquarters, somewhere around four o'clock in the morning. The ladies behind the counter were gibbering about something or other, and giggling between each other, and showing each other their phones every once in a while. It was something of a comforting sound, and it relieved the buzzing in the back of his own head. The sounds in the kitchen of the glass clinking and food cooking only added to the comfort._

_ He sighed, set the phone down, and folded his arms across his chest. It was safe here. There was no way Lucy would be down to eat anytime soon. In fact, if her posts on Facebook were to be believed, she was still out with Gary, and if that was true, she'd head to bed as soon as they got back. He shook his head as he suddenly imagined the two of them going to bed together._

Why? Why does this bother me so much?_ he asked himself. _It's not like there was... well, much to indicate a relationship. We were just pushed together in some bad circumstances. We comforted each other during some hard times. It wasn't anything enough to cause all this _pain_.

_ He knew he was kidding himself, though. That's how it sometimes seemed Lucy tried to make it out to be like._

If only she hadn't been so... nice about it, so affectionate.

_ His mind flashed back to a night in the Villa, when he'd been up and around because of the pain in his head. She'd sat with him on his sleeping bag, and stroked him behind his ear. She'd laid there with him, her head on his shoulder, trying not to fall asleep because it would look unprofessional. He'd known that was what she was worried about, and it had brought a smile to his face in spite of the throbbing pain in his head, as he'd decided to risk putting a hand on her back._

_ It had worked. She'd closed her eyes and gone to sleep. And eventually, he had, too._

_ He wondered if that had been what set Rebecca off against him sooo hard..._

_ "Desmond?"_

_ He shook his head. That had been his name, right?_

_ "Right here, son."_

_ "Son"... That meant it was his dad. He turned his head up._

_ There was William coming towards him, with Lila, the new receptionist for the Animus Team at the Headquarters in tow._

_ Desmond stood. "Hi, dad."_

_ William seemed insistent on hugging Desmond these days, about which Desmond had no serious complaints – and so they did._

_ "Looking for me for something?" asked Desmond._

_ "No, I was just... thinking about getting a little breakfast. And Lila, here, hasn't eaten, so... I figured I'd show her what they can do in the kitchen." He turned his head to the waitress that had hastily approached her boss. "I'll have the usual. Lila?"_

_ "Um... I'll have some eggs and hash browns, please."_

_ "And to drink?"_

_ "Oh... some of that tea looks good," replied Lila, looking at the glass on the table by Desmond's leg._

_ She then turned to Desmond, whom she seemed to have just noticed, and smiled. He grinned back._

_ "Hot or cold?"_

_ "Whatever he's having."_

_ "Coming right up."_

_ She started to leave._

_ But with this new – and encouraging – attention from a female, even though it wasn't Lucy, Desmond made a snap decision. "Uh... just a sec," he said, gesturing her back with two fingers. "I'll have something, too." He picked up the menu and browsed it for about half a second. His eyes fell on the omelet. "Omelet sounds good." With a smile, he handed the menu back. "And sorry, I don't often use that, I just..." he looked around appreciatively at the room, "come to get away."_

_ The waitress smiled. "No problem, Mr. Miles. I'll probably be back with your omelet first."_

_ He nodded, and sat back down._

_ "Mind if we join you?" asked William, indicating the seat in front of him._

_ "No, no," said Desmond, almost too quickly in his eagerness for a little company. "Go ahead."_

_ William and Lila took a seat._

_ "Now..." said William, turning to Lila, "...introductions. Lila, this is my son, Desmond."_

_ Automatically, both Desmond and Lila reached across the table and shook hands._

_ "Hi."_

_ "Hello, sir."_

_ He shook his head. "Please. Not 'sir'."_

_ She laughed lightly. "Okay, sorry. Would you prefer 'Mr. Miles', or 'Desmond'?"_

_ "How about, 'slacker', courtesy of my old man, here?" joked Desmond, taking a drink from his glass of tea._

_ "Oh, whatever," answered William, waving a hand in Desmond's direction. "Please... You were still the best of the kids on the Farm."_

_ This actually took Desmond by surprise._

_ He cocked his head to the side. "Really?"_

_ "Easily," said William. "Thank you, Amber."_

_ The waitress had just returned with their drinks. She set a coffee down by William and another glass of tea down by Lila. It was heated, just as Desmond had ordered it himself when he'd arrived about a half hour ago._

_ "You're welcome, Bill." She pointed to Desmond. "I'll be right back with your omelet."_

_ He nodded, mostly to her back as she walked away._

_ But he wanted to know more about how his father had thought of him. "So... how was I the easiest? You always said I was up the latest in the morning, and took the longest to learn everything."_

_ "Mmm," said William through his coffee mug that was pouring the drink into his mouth. When he was done drinking, he took a deep breath."Yes, but you were also the quietest. Far less whiny about it. We all thought the other kids would run away first..."_

_ Something of an awkward silence fell between them, as it had whenever this had been brought up. Desmond looked down at his glass of tea, which he had just wrapped both of his hands around, and William stared out the window at the busy night streets._

_ Lila was the first to break it. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not excited that it took so long to get you back. I mean... you _have_ been a great addition to the team. But still, it must've been exciting, at least a little."_

_ Desmond nodded. "At times, it was. I wondered that first night if I was going to die, but when I ran into some girls that took me to Chicago, it got a lot better."_

_ "Oooh..." said Lila, widening her eyes at the tablecloth._

_ Desmond chuckled. "No. No, it wasn't like THAT. Not yet, anyway..."_

_ "I'm curious," said William, leaning forward on the palm of his hand, "when DID you become such a sex hound?"_

_ Desmond raised his eyebrows and took a drink of tea. "Probably at the bar. I mean, yeah, I had sex before that, it's just– oh, sorry, Lila."_

_ He'd seen out of the corner of his eye that she ducked her head and blushed at her tea._

_ "It's fine, it's fine," she insisted._

_ "Oh, no it's not," said William. He reached down into a bag and pulled an envelope out of it. "It's unprofessional."_

_ "Yeah, my mistake," said Desmond holding up a hand. "I'm sorry."_

_ Behind William's back, her head angled downward and one hand pulling a pair of glasses out of her shirt front pocket, she smiled at her drink._

_ As William began to walk her through some complicated paperwork, Desmond smiled at his, as well._

* * *

_ The encounter with Lila put Desmond in a friendly mood for the majority of the day. He was almost skipping down the hall to the food court in which he always passed through to get to the gym for his prescribed workouts close to the end of the day. He came into the locker room half-humming, half-singing a song he hadn't heard for a while._

_ "I wake up... and tear drops... they fall down like rain. I put on... that old song... we danced to, and then... I head off... to my job... 'cause not much... has changed. Punch the clock. Head for home. Check the phone... just in case. Go to bed. Dream of you. That's what I'm doing these days."_

_ "Are you alright, mate?" came the voice of Shaun from behind him._

_ "Yep. Sure am," replied Desmond, ruffling Shaun's hair as he passed._

_ He heard Shaun's annoyed sigh as he sat down on the bench to put his socks on._

_ "Well... that's good. Haven't seen you in a while..."_

_ "Yeah, I know. I was going to go to that bar with you guys last Thursday, but..." he shrugged, "never got the invite."_

_ Shaun sighed. "Yeah. Well, listen... I've decided to take over on that. We're all going to see a 3D showing of _Titanic_ next week. Can you come?"_

_ Desmond blinked twice. "_Titanic_?"_

_ Shaun nodded and began putting on his own socks. "Lucy's choice." He eyed Desmond carefully. "Gary's never seen it, so she's decided to rectify that."_

_ A sudden knot caught Desmond in the very center of his chest. The grin faded from his face and was replaced by hard indifference – the very thing he'd had to be so frequently those last couple of weeks._

_ "I..." he started out, but he couldn't say anything. "Look... Shaun... I, uh..." He looked at the ceiling and sighed. "Let me get back to you on that. How soon do you need to know?"_

_ "That's what I thought," said Shaun as he finished tying the knot on his shoe. "I'll need to know by Wednesday of next week."_

_ Shaun stood and head for the door. Desmond nodded, and waved after him. He suddenly didn't feel like working out..._

_ But he did it. He probably could've easily gotten out of it, given his position, but he decided not to._

_ But Gary was, of course, there. He didn't seem to notice Desmond's mood anymore than he usually had. He smiled, he waved... And Desmond remembered his promise to Lucy, and smiled and waved back. Now more than ever he wanted to strangle the bastard._

_ But then, he suddenly thought that maybe he shouldn't blame Gary so much. After all, it wasn't really Gary's fault, was it? It was Lucy's. As much as he'd not wanted to admit it, or even see it that way to begin with, there was just no other way to look at it: it was Lucy._

_ Lucy was the one who'd brought him around and introduced him to everyone. Lucy was the one who'd flaunted their relationship so frequently in the public's eye. Lucy couldn't go for a second without hugging and kissing him. And then, there was the incident from last week, when she'd suddenly attacked him in the lounge and William had had to order them upstairs. That had been so blatantly-ridiculous, Desmond had almost wondered even then if she was putting it on. She would never have done so usually, but she was different now, that was for sure._

_ These thoughts kept Desmond steady all the way through his workouts. He gathered his things and left the locker room far before everyone else... before Gary could catch up with him._

_ His efforts turned out to be in vain, however, because just outside the locker rooms, most of the women were already waiting._

_ "Desmond!"_

_ He just about stomped his foot. But he figured that wouldn't do him any favors. So he turned and greeted Lucy with the same false smile he usually did._

_ "Hey, Luce. What's going on?"_

_ "Not a whole lot," she said, approaching him and hugging him. "I'm shocked, usually the guys' workouts get out faster."_

_ Desmond shrugged. "What can I say? It's more intense for us."_

_ Lucy ran something of an appraising eye over him. "I can see that."  
_

_ Immediately, he became more self-conscious. "Oh, you know what I mean."_

_ She laughed at his obvious nervousness. "Well, anyway... it seems to be helping Gary out. He has a lot of physical struggles. He's actually a bit older than I am, you know..."_

_ Desmond's eyes had narrowed just the slightest bit. "No, I didn't know that."_

_ "Well, now you do," came the cheerful voice of Gary. He walked right up to Lucy, put his arms around her, and kissed her. "Had a good workout, babe?"_

_ She smiled and nodded back to him. "Yeah. You?"_

_ "Definitely." He turned to Desmond and reached out and punched his lightly in the gut. "You shoulda seen this big man over here... He was really going at it. Left in a hurry, too. Got plans, Des?"_

_ Desmond clenched the fist he had wrapped around his bags together. "No, not really," he said abruptly._

_ "Hey, speaking of plans..." said Lucy, "it's a good thing you said that. Are you too busy next week to come with us to see a movie? In case, you know, Rebecca 'forgets'..."_

_ She made an air quote._

_ Desmond's lip shook slightly. "Uh... I already heard about it from Shaun. I might be there."_

_ "That would be awesome!" exclaimed Gary. "We're going to see _Titanic_ in 3D, 'cause I've never seen it. Come to think of it, never seen a movie in 3D at all, really."_

_ "Can you believe that?" asked Lucy incredulously. "Never seen _Titanic_... Just... wow."_

_ "It'll, uh... it'll be an experience," said Desmond sadly. "The first time I saw it was... on a date, too."_

_ "Liked it? The movie, I mean," asked Gary._

_ Desmond nodded somewhat forcefully. "Yeah... I do. Good movie."_

_ "Uh oh," said Gary, quieting his tone. "Doesn't look like something you've got good memories with."_

_ "Well..." said Desmond, inwardly cursing that the one time Gary would take notice of his mood would be now, "it's kinda... more about the idea of going to see it again. I don't know, it just sounds like it might be mildly depressing."_

_ Lucy's smile dropped. "Oh... Would you rather we go see something else?"_

_ Desmond waved a hand. "No. No, don't do that. If I decide I can't handle it, I won't go. Gotta, um... give Gary a chance to see it." He looked over his shoulder. "Listen, I'm tired. I'm gonna go and get some rest, okay?"_

_ Lucy again stepped forward and hugged him. "Okay. Let us know if you're coming, alright?"_

_ "Yeah..." he said, leaving a kiss on top of her head. "Sure. I-I'll see you later, Luce."_

_ "Alright," she said softly and stepped back away from him._

_ Back to Gary._

_ Desmond smiled, and turned abruptly, and left._

_ The entire way up to his room, he struggled to maintain some slight composure. He wanted to hit everyone he passed. The elevator ride up to his room was the worst part, by far. There were two guys behind him, and as if the situation with Lucy weren't enough to make him lonely, they were both talking about where they planned to take their girlfriends for their third and fifth anniversaries, respectively._

_ When he reached his room, he stumbled through the door and fell right onto the bed. The sweat was running off his forehead and into the sheets. He sighed, partly with relief and partly with barely-contained sadness and frustration._

_ When the war had first ended, and Desmond had finally admitted to himself that he felt... _something_ for Lucy, he'd had a plan in mind._

_ Another night at the Villa, when he'd woken up, he'd found her sitting on the stone railing by the door. He'd gone to sit with her and talk to her, and to cheer her up, he'd started talking about some movies he liked. Comedies, specifically. _Forgetting Sarah Marshall_ and _When In Rome_, for example. Both great movies, and she'd never seen either of them._

_ Somehow, the conversation had steered towards romantic movies, and one of her favorite movies was, apparently, _Titanic_. Coincidentally, it was also one of his._

_ So, when he'd first seen on (ironically) Facebook it was coming back to theaters in 3D again, he'd planned to take Lucy. Under the guise of just being good friends who happened to enjoy the movie, of course._

_ And he'd really been looking forward to that, for more reasons than one. As the weariness took him and sleep came to him, he couldn't help imagining himself going to the movie with Lucy. With _just_ himself and Lucy._

* * *

_As the time crept closer and closer to see the movie, Desmond was still undecided. Fortunately, though, nobody except Shaun seemed to have cottoned on to the reason why. Nobody except Shaun really seemed to care, either. Desmond found a new appreciation for the Brit when, on the Monday preceding the movie, he was joined at lunch by him._

_ "Hey."_

_ Desmond, who had been leaning forward with his forehead protected in his arms, looked up. It was Shaun, something he hadn't expected. He straightened up._

_ "Oh... Hi, Shaun. What's up?"_

_ "Oh, don't worry about it," replied Shaun in a low voice, sliding into the chair catty-cornered from Desmond. "You don't have to pretend everything's alright with me."_

_ "Thanks..." sighed Desmond with genuine relief, "...'cause it's not."_

_ "I figured," said Shaun, wasting no time in unwrapping his sandwich and taking a bite. "You're never around, and whenever you are, you always look terribly stressed, and run down... I thought at first it might just be Rebecca, but then I noticed it got worse when Lucy introduced Gary."_

_ Desmond smiled. "Caught that, did ya?"_

_ "Of course," said Shaun with his mouth full and a slight shrug. "I'm the smartest person you know, weren't you aware?"_

_ "Well, there WERE those puzzles with Subject 16... I guess that kinda clued me in..."_

_ "Mmm. Funny you should mention him." Shaun's eyes diverted momentarily to the window as he took a drink from his water bottle. "I was just wondering yesterday afternoon, what would it be like if he was here?"_

_ "Yeah... or Daniel Cross..." said Desmond thoughtfully._

_ "Right. How fucked would everything be right about now? I mean, Lucy... if you think she's bad about Gary, the emails she was sending Rebecca and I the whole time Subject 16 was there... Jesus, sometimes I just wanted to write back and say, 'Either suck his dick, or get a life!'."_

_ Desmond's eyes widened at first, and then fell to the table as the feeling of jealousy from even that long-gone, and merely only implied, relationship between Lucy and another male registered in his thoughts._

_ Shaun caught this, as well. "Oh... Sorry, mate."_

_ Desmond shook his head and made a movement with his fingers while his hand was wrapped around the base of his own water bottle. "It's okay."_

_ He looked up and over to the table where Lucy was sitting, and just stared..._

_ She was so beautiful, even next to _him_. There was a window right behind her. The faint, orange sunlight was falling on her, making her hair glow, particularly around the tips of it. She was laughing as Gary accidentally knocked her water over. She reached around, in something of a frenzy Desmond could only see as cute coming from her usually well-ordered form, for a napkin to use to clean it up._

_ Everything seemed to be in slow motion for him for a moment. Her big, blue eyes opened, and narrowed with her happiness. Her lips moved to form the words, "That's okay" as she turned to Gary. Her chest rose and fell with her light, joyful laughter..._

_ In his trance, Desmond's lips turned up in a faint smile._

_ He heard Shaun's voice, speaking softly from beside him. "Oh, Desmond..."_

_ Eyes still fixed on Lucy, his smile grew a bit wider._

_ He suddenly realized, as he turned back to Shaun, that he was shedding a few tears. Shaun handed him a napkin, as well._

_ "She's using one, too, right now," he said comfortingly._

_ Desmond's heart swelled as he accepted it from his teammate..._

_ ...from his friend..._

* * *

It was almost like a dream when Desmond awoke at the feeling of something pressing lightly down on him. He jumped up a bit, too muddled by the bizarre mixture of good feelings and painful feelings caused by his memories, and found that it was just Lucy.

She jumped back a bit when she saw him move into the upright position so quickly. "Whoa!"

He panted a bit.

"Oh..." he finally said. "Hi, Luce. I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

"A little bit," she answered cautiously. She was regarding him with a hint of suspicion. "Are you alright?"

"Am I alright?" he questioned, head cocked to the side slightly.

"Yeah. You were muttering something about Shaun."

Desmond inhaled sharply. "Yeah, I must've been dreaming about him. Or, well, dreaming some old memories and he was in them."

"Memories?" repeated Lucy, taking a seat by his feet on the couch.

"Yeah. I... I was remembering a day, when... I was... watching you at lunch, back in the Headquarters."

Lucy seemed slightly confused. She blinked twice.

Desmond grinned, recognizing that as a mannerism she'd picked up from him. "I used to do that sometimes. Watch you at lunch." He turned to smile out the window beside him. "Okay, well, it was actually almost everyday, but who's counting...?"

It was dark out. His smile disappeared as he wondered how long he'd been asleep, and left her alone. He didn't even have work, what was he doing sleeping? He didn't get to see her much, as it was.

He turned to her. "How long have I– "

But at that moment, her hand came to rest on his knee. His eyes fell on it, initially, but then gradually made their way up to her face.

She was looking at him with glassy eyes and a slightly-trembling lip. He looked down again, for a moment, and then reached out and put his hand on hers.

After that, she crawled forward into his arms and kissed him, again letting her tears fall down her cheeks and mesh with their connected lips.

And Desmond was suddenly hyper-aware of everything. The feel of her body pressed up against his. Her lips on his. Her hands on his neck. Her back underneath _his_ hands. This was something he'd never gotten to do back then, in the times he'd been dreaming of.

He'd wanted to...

Oh, how he'd wanted to...

But he couldn't. She was Gary's back then. She'd given herself to another man to hold, and to love... and to kiss...

And now... suddenly... _he_ could. And he couldn't believe how lucky he was, after all that that he'd been through. After all they'd _both_ been through...

And he was suddenly determined he would not waste this. He would not lose her now. He would find a way, no matter what it took, to make her happy with him... to make them happy with each other.

She pushed a little on him, wanting him to lie back on the couch. He gave, but pulled her with him. Their lips continued to move together, creating a blissful, perfect sensation for both of them as they simply enjoyed one another.

"I love you," he whispered to her at one point for a few brief moments as their night together progressed in which she had kissed other parts of him.

She stopped, and looked back to him. "I love you, too," she whispered back.


	9. Rain

The beginning of November rolled around, but it was still raining out. Desmond sat against the back of the couch, with Lucy slouched over on his shoulder, sleeping. In his lap was the laptop he rarely ever got to use when she was around. Sitting on the table beside him was a mug of tea. Spattering against the window was mildly-heavy rainfall. The drops were relaxing him as he cruised around on YouTube, looking up old videos posted by his father following the war's end. Nothing fancy, of course, but enough to catch the attention of the world. Enough to ensure everyone knew what Abstergo was all about.

Against his arm, Lucy stirred and whispered his name in her sleep. He looked down at her with a smile, and then leaned forward, pressing his lips up against her forehead. As he pulled back, he brushed a few strands of her beautiful blonde hair aside with his fingertips. She sighed, and rubbed her face against his bicep.

His grinned widened a bit as he decided to wrap up the evening's computer use by checking his email. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be moving from the couch for the night, other than to check that the doors were locked and to use the bathroom one last time. His grin faded a bit as he remembered the mild bit of conflict that had sometimes caused between him and Christine, the owner of Bad Weather. He'd always had to have made the last thing before bed a trip to the bathroom, or else he'd soon be up again running back to it. A symptom of what his mother had lovingly-self-diagnosed as being a mild form of OCD.

Desmond's eyes rolled almost involuntarily, as they did frequently whenever his parents or something to do with them came into his thoughts. He knew he shouldn't. After all, they were taking very good care of him. And now Lucy, as well. His father had been awfully quick to forgive Lucy after they'd pulled her out of Abstergo's remains (even if the other Assassins hadn't all been so), which had surprised Desmond, prepared as he was to go down hard defending her. His mother had offered little to no comment on the situation, attributing Lucy's change of heart to an ingrained sense of rightness and justice that no amount of her bitterness towards the Assassins for her "unfortunate position in life" could remove...

An honest-enough assessment of the situation, if only in intent, Desmond supposed. But he couldn't get past his mother's downplaying of the situation as being an "unfortunate position in life". It was a blatant rearranging of the story to put her and his father's decisions in a more positive light, and he couldn't stand that type of pretentious horseshit.

His email loaded up, eventually, while he absentmindedly sipped at his tea and wondered what kind it was. Lucy had brewed it for him on the stove top. He shrugged, and drained a considerable gulp of it before setting it back down on the side table.

The very first thing his eyes fell on was an email from his mother, labeled: "Thanksgiving"...

Reflecting on the irony, he shuddered, and clicked it open to see what it was all about, although he was pretty sure he already knew...

_Hi, honey._

_Your father and I are thinking about staying at the spa for the last week of November. To celebrate the holiday with you and Lucy. We need the time away, and I daresay you'll both want some company, with Shaun and Rebecca getting ready to trek off to see her family. I talked to Shaun about it yesterday, in fact. Since most of his own family are dead (and the rest that aren't are estranged from him for his wild conspiracy theories back in the day), he's agreed that Rebecca's been away from home long enough, now. And I would certainly say so! Will any of the Stillmans be joining us for this occasion? If so, can you tell me what they like! I'll bring a dish!_

_Hopefully, the two of you are doing a bit better than you were the last time I talked to you. I know you're a grown man now, and you've certainly earned it by every imaginable standard, but... try to be nicer to Lucy about the situation. More understanding. She loves you, and she's trying very hard, Desmond._

_I'm sure you'll both get it sorted out. We'll see you in three weeks! Let me know about Lucy's family!_

_Love,_

_Mom_

Reading this put Desmond in an immediately-jumpy mood. Since his encounter with Lucy in the men's steam room at work, she hadn't been back with him. And as the time passed, he started to find himself behind the fucking desk every weekend. All pretenses of it being an "every-once-in-a-while-thing" had been totally dropped. The regular didn't want to work so frequently all the time, and he didn't need to, to be honest. So, with Desmond there, and usually eager enough for the time and the money... it had expanded more in his direction.

Before Lucy's arrival, he would have been happy about that. Life hadn't been riveting since his return to New York, but while he'd been okay with that initially, it had been starting to catch up with him. The fact now, though, was that Lucy was now there with him, and it was beginning to take a mild toll on their relationship. A relationship that was born out of strained circumstances, to begin with.

He looked down at her sleeping form, and was reminded both involuntarily and unpleasantly that they were in the position they were in because he'd accepted time that upcoming weekend, and she hadn't liked it, and the whole thing had turned into a mild argument. Shaun and Rebecca would soon be skipping out on her for almost a month, the concept of which she was NOT handling very well. But whenever Desmond offered to bring her with, she cited her worries about him losing his job (that she obviously hated, and he hadn't ever hesitated to point that out) as being the reason why she always declined. In truth, he knew she just wanted to spend the time with Rebecca.

Desmond wondered idly as he closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table in front of him what Shaun was thinking of this whole thing. Back when he and Lucy had been so painfully separated, Desmond and Shaun had eventually grown quite close. He noticed Shaun had that quality about him. Something that was off-puttingly charming. After a while, one could sense that Shaun wasn't as emotionless as he liked to pretend, and when he asked them about it (as he always eventually did), it would be easy and comforting enough just to let it out.

Lucy, for example, had trusted Shaun with her feelings about Desmond. And Desmond wondered, as he kissed her head again and pulled the blanket that had slid to her feet up tighter around her, what the conversation had been about and how it had turned in that direction. Shaun had neatly dodged answering Desmond's question the one time he'd said anything about it to him before, but Desmond was sure there was... an interesting side to this story. Frequently, whenever Lucy or Shaun were involved in anything just on their own, there was a layer of mystery. The two of them together would be a movie.

Desmond chuckled as he slid out from under Lucy and went to check the doors and windows. They were all shut. But as he wandered into the bathroom to use it, his mind turned to his parents. They were really, REALLY going to come and do this whole family charade for Thanksgiving. On the one hand, he'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't at least partially-interesting in seeing them. He loved them, and they loved him, and Lucy fit well into that combination.

_Obviously_, he thought bitterly, _if my mom feels free to comment on our relationship like that..._

But, if he was honest with himself, he was glad about that, too. He just didn't know what to do with the situation. He didn't sense any serious problems with their relationship, but he knew something was up. She'd been spending so much more time with Rebecca lately, and seemed to be disinterested in him and what was going on with him...

It hadn't really affected their sex and other physical affections, though. When they kissed, her arms wound tightly and eagerly around his neck and shoulders. Her lips moved quickly, like they were craving his. They often sat on the couch together, or went places with each other. They kept each other within a general reach, and talked freely and smoothly. When they made love or performed favors for each other, she looked into his eyes with wide, innocent stares, as if hoping she was doing it right for him. Almost begging for his approval...

She showed a consistent desire to please him outside of the bedroom, as well. She still made him breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. She confided in him her troubles with missing her family, or even problems she had occasionally had with Rebecca... She did his laundry sometimes, too. And he'd heard her on the phone saying things like, "I wonder if Desmond would like that" or, "Do you think Desmond would like that on me"...

And he felt like shit, too, because he'd taken it out of her a couple of times. He'd always made up for it, but there was just something about losing his patience with her he didn't like about himself. He wasn't usually a mean person, since his days in the Animus, but he'd been known to be cutting before. In the bar, Christine and his friends had sometimes had to just let it roll from their backs, because if they took it too seriously, they'd be hurt badly by it. But Lucy had never really seen that side of him... She didn't often understand what it was that was even bothering him to begin with, or how she figured into it. Especially to deserve him yelling at her like that...

He sighed, and flushed the toilet. "Get a grip on yourself and the situation, Desmond," he muttered as he set out to shut all the lights off.

And when they were all off, he returned to Lucy, who had curled up slightly in his absence to pull her knees into her chest. He smiled weakly at the sight of it, and then climbed in next to her. She, like always, reacted to his presence. She pressed herself further into him, and he tightened his arms around her.

"I love you," he whispered, quietly. "And I'm so sorry so, so much for forgetting that, sometimes." He played with a strand of her hair. "You're beautiful, you know, Luce... Inside and out." He again kissed her head, this time on her temple. "Thank you for giving me chances to make it right. I promise I will."

The rain spattering against the window drew his attention up. The sound was relaxing him greatly...

"I love you," he repeated to Lucy, as the room began to darken with his closing eyelids. "Goodnight..."

And then he fell into sleep, the warm form of Lucy huddled protectively into him in every way he could imagine, want, or ask for.


	10. Release

_Desmond often found there was something comforting about living in such a large, complex environment. It reminded him of happier days during his times in New York. Marginally happier, but still... There was something he loved about being awake and active during the evenings, sunsets, and nights. And the people running the Assassin's HQ – not all necessarily Assassins – were in tune with that style of living naturally._

_ So, he took a deep breath and sighed it out on his way towards the fountain Shaun had asked to meet him at. The sun was going down for the day... and the first stars were becoming visible in the skies. His skin shivered at the sight of the skyline behind the tall, mountainous buildings..._

_ Sitting beneath them – or so it looked, from the angle Desmond was approaching from – was Shaun. He was browsing through several loose sheets of paper, all standard sized. And there was a much larger one, too... folded up and set underneath a black, plastic bowl with some kind of food Desmond couldn't quite make out. He waved in Shaun's direction, and the latter looked up. Irritation was plastered all over his face, and so Desmond was pretty sure he knew what the very first words out of Shaun's mouth would be. He wondered if he might not just turn around and leave if he was right..._

_ "About bloody time, mate!" whispered Shaun, sharply. "I've got NEWS for you..."_

_ On the verge of turning, Desmond stopped. "...News...?" he said hesitantly. "Bad news?"_

_ "Far from it! Take a seat, man!"_

_ Shaun scooted over a bit to make some room for Desmond, adjusting his plastic bowl and folded paper as he did so. Desmond slid somewhat gracefully into a seated position besides Shaun, and caught the smell of what seemed like..._

_ "...chicken fingers?" he asked, eying the bowl. "Are you eating chicken fingers?"_

_ "Yeah!" replied Shaun, defensively. "I am. What of it?"_

_ Desmond shrugged. "Nothing. Just... didn't ever see you as the 'chicken finger' type."_

_ Shaun shrugged in return. "Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures." He popped the last bite of the chicken finger lying on top of the remaining in his mouth. "Look–" he continued with a full mouth "–I've been through hell and back to get this information for you. You'd better be bloody grateful."_

_ Desmond rolled his eyes and grinned mischievously at him. "Yes, mater. Now, tell me what's going on."_

_ "Ooh, 'master', eh? I like the sound of THAT..."_

_ "C'mon, Shaun, spit it out. I was trying to spend some quality time with my right hand upstairs."_

_ Shaun froze, a chicken finger halfway to his mouth. He stopped, and surveyed it disdainfully. "Erm... Want a chicken finger?"_

_ "Sounds good," replied Desmond, taking it from him without waiting for anything further. "So, what's the deal?"_

_ "Okay..." sighed Shaun. "First, did you talk to Lucy about going to see the movie yet?"_

_ Desmond bit off a chunk of the fried poultry and shook his head. "Mm mmm."_

_ "Good. Because, guess who's in the air, as we speak, for an emergency clean-up mission in Ireland with a team of Assassins?"_

_ A thousand emotions ran through Desmond in the course of a second. "Lucy..." he half-asked, half-answered sadly._

_ Of course. Of course she was leaving. And the "team of Assassins" probably included Gary._

_ Why? Why did this keep happening to him? Why was it, no matter what, he couldn't catch a break. Not of any kind, for any even short length of time...? Nothing. Ever._

_ What if she was gone for a long time? What if it took them weeks, months? What if the mission didn't go as planned, and it took even longer? Years! Years without seeing her! Without seeing Lucy..._

_ What if it was a trap of some kind? What if she got hurt, or... he swallowed a lump that seemed to have solidified and inflated in a second to a considerable size... killed. What if it happened, and for real, this time..._

_ But, then... was this such a bad thing?_

_ No! No... He wouldn't go there, wouldn't think that. No matter how much harder this was getting for him, it wasn't worth Lucy dying. Or even being gone for a long time..._

_ No, he was pretty sure he wouldn't like that, either._

_ He put his head in his hands, and dropped the chicken finger into the fountain. He was vaguely aware of Shaun's eyes following it into the water..._

_ But he didn't care. He tried to imagine going for an extended period of time without... well, without Lucy. Even in the limited form he had. Even from a distance, watching her laugh and enjoy her lunch was something he could look forward to. If he could ignore Gary on the side..._

_ Even though she was sometimes pointedly not talking to him when she spoke, her voice would hold itself in his head. Helped him relax at night, when he was trying to go to sleep. Helped him find the inspiration he needed when his aforementioned right hand was lonely..._

_ He raised his head and leaned his chin in his hands, instead. "Lucy," he repeated, taking a deep breath. "Lucy is, of course..."_

_ For all his many, many brains, Shaun was remarkably oblivious to the mini-breakdown Desmond had just experience right in front of him. "Nope! No, Lucy's probably on her way back from the airport, though..."_

_ Desmond turned, and looked at Shaun with a puzzled expression all over his face. Normally, it would've registered as a bit of a happier thing, but he was too tired from his strained thought process to let it sink in yet._

_ "No, it definitely wasn't Lucy," Shaun continued with a sly smile. "It was Gary."_

_ "What!?" demanded Desmond, sharply._

_ "Gary," repeated Shaun. "Your father got word from a team in Ireland that a Templar straggler group had killed all three of his team members. He chose Gary's team to back him up. Obviously, they'd like to avoid further losses to our ranks, so–"_

_ Desmond held up a silencing hand. "Wait, stop. I don't care about the Assassin versus Templar bullshit anymore. You'd better not be toying with me, Shaun." He put both hands on Shaun's shoulders and gazed into him. "Are you saying that, for an undetermined amount of time, Lucy will be here... alone... without Gary...?"_

_ Shaun's face wriggled into an expression of incredulity that he often wore when speaking with Desmond. "Yes, mate, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now, please... You're wrinkling the sweater vest, and people are staring at us like we're about to kiss, or something–"_

_ Desmond leapt up suddenly. "YES!" he yelled. "Oh... YES! Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Whoo! Alright! That's what I'm talkin' about! More, please! More of that! Yes!"_

_ A joyful feeling settled into his stomach, and seemed to coax the monster that had resided there since he'd thought Lucy had died. The monster that had kept twisting and turning him inwardly, giving him stomach aches and headaches, keeping him up at night..._

_ "How, when? What should... I don't know, what should I do?" he asked of no one in particular, looking back and forth at the perfectly-cleaned lobby they were in like he was seeing it for the first time._

_ "Well, for starters, you might want to sit back down," came Shaun's forcibly-patient voice from behind him._

_ "Oh! Yeah..." agreed Desmond. He slid back into his seat. "So, wait... when did they leave? Gary AND Lucy, I mean? How long before she's back?"_

_ "Easy, there, Desmond."_

_ Something about Shaun's tone of voice was enough to partially-kill Desmond's buzz. There was a bit of a warning in his tone and a frantic pleading in his hand gesture that immediately told Desmond there was something else..._

_ "Okay, okay, sorry," he said, subdued. "It's just, I haven't heard anything that good in a while, so..."_

_ "That's right, and if you don't want to waste it, you can't be like that. I know you were a REAL expert on love – in the physical sense of the word, anyway – back at the Bar. I did the background check on you, myself."_

_ This caught Desmond by some marginal surprise. "'Background check'?"_

_ "But that won't work with Lucy," Shaun went on, "in case you hadn't picked that up in all your time with her. She doesn't go for the wild, hormonal... well, biker type."_

_ "I haven't rode a bike for–" Desmond began defensively._

_ "– it doesn't matter!" interrupted Shaun. "Not the point. The point is, you can't just go charging in there and expect to succeed totally on charm and a tan."_

_ Desmond looked at his hands, reminding himself in afterthought of a cartoon._

_ "With Lucy, you have to be gentle, and you have to have some semblance of class. So, that's why I figured I'd probably better plan this one out."_

_ Putting his hands down on his thighs, Desmond straightened up. "Right," he said, aligning his spine with a shudder. "Classy. No one knows 'class' like you, huh? Probably why you haven't been laid in so many years."_

_ Shaun rolled his eyes. "It might interest you to know–"_

_ "–and it doesn't count when you paid for it," Desmond cut him off._

_ Something of a knowing look in Shaun's eye settled, and he folded his arms in mock surrender. "Whatever you say. Now, shall we talk about Lucy?"_

_ "Wait, what? Who was it?"_

_ "I figure," Shaun went on, "that Lucy will be a little distracted when she gets back from seeing Gary off. I figure that's your time to go for it. You still wanna see that movie?"_

_ Although his curiosity had the better of him, Desmond nodded, tentatively. "I... yeah. Sure. Since Gary's not going."_

_ "Not unless he's learned teleportation. So, I think we can safely assume he won't be there."_

_ "He wouldn't need a plane," chuckled Desmond._

_ "Right. So, here's what I think you should do: go back up to your room, and before your pants come off, write to her and ask her if she's still interested in going to see _Titanic_. Don't let her know that you know Gary's not there. Instead, when you write to her, just ask if she's interested. Without mentioning him in the letter, that was you make it clear it's her you're thinking about. If she accepts, when you go out, take her somewhere nice-ish to eat. Nothing too fancy or obvious. But don't go for something like... McDonald's or Taco Bell, or wherever."_

_ "I'm not THAT stupid."_

_ "That's debatable. When you watch the movie, lean back in your seat and balance one of your ankles on your other knee. Try putting your arms behind your head, or lean them off the back of your seat. It's quite an... emotional movie, to put it mildly. So, you don't want to seem too obvious. Like you were expecting something, or anything. But don't do anything like sit in the back, where the teenagers will be screwing around. Sit somewhere in the middle, if you can."_

_ Desmond bit down on his tongue behind his closed lips. Obviously, Shaun had never been to a New York theater, where the teenagers screwed around pretty much wherever they sat. People rarely bothered to call the cops anymore..._

_ "When it's over, ask her if she wants to go eat again. If not, she might want to go for a walk. Or, hang out somewhere else, for a little while. She'll probably be lonely, and as we all know, it's... not something she handles well."_

A shot at her betrayal_, thought Desmond. He affixed Shaun with a meaningful look. _Nice...

_ "Oh, you know what I mean. I'm not blaming her for it. Even if she HADN'T... well... you know..." He cleared his throat self-consciously and straightened his glasses. "I'd still be on her side. At least, about this. I've not enjoyed the time alone, either."_

_ Desmond nodded. "Yeah. Well, anyway, I get the point. Take Lucy to the movie. Don't be too obvious. Play it subtle. And remember Ezio."_

_ "There ya go!" Shaun clapped Desmond's back. "Draw on all your time with good old Ezio in the Animus. Certainly knew how to get around, didn't he?"_

_ "Yeah..." answered Desmond, softly._

_ Thinking about Ezio explained a lot of his own experiences whilst working at Bad Weather. Not that he'd gotten THAT much from the women there, but... he had quite a track record, of his own. He'd never wondered about it, or questioned it, really. To him, it had seemed like normal. His buddies had all gotten around, pretty well, also. That was just... LIFE, as a bartender. There were bound to be a few women who took interest in the guy who was serving them their drinks and their food. It happened sometimes..._

_ But, thinking back, he knew where he'd gotten some of his traits from. The way he could maneuver his way up to a woman using his voice and his smooth movements. The way he slipped his hand pretty much anywhere on her body... The fluid movements of his jaw, when he set his lips to work... again, anywhere she wanted him too..._

_ "Christine," he whispered, and sighed as he realized he was really only thinking of one woman._

_ "I'm sorry?" asked Shaun, retrieving the papers he had set down._

_ "Christine. I was thinking about the owner at Bad Weather. I..." he paused, and considered what he was about to say. Was this REALLY something he WANTED to know about?_

_ Well... yeah, it probably was. "What did you mean when you said you did a 'background check' on me?"_

_ "Typical procedure, whenever we recruit someone new. 'Specially in circumstances like yours."_

_ Shaun did not look up from whatever it was he was reviewing. It made Desmond feel like, maybe, it was safe to pursue the topic._

_ "Yeah?" he pressed._

_ Shaun flipped to the next page. "It's just, it's important for us to make sure we don't have people who have been indoctrinated by the Templars, or who are psycho killers of their own volition. You know, safety of the order. A track record of being able to keep secrets is important, as well. That's what I'm looking at right now, actually." He held the papers over for Desmond to see. "A new recruit..."_

_ Desmond pushed the papers away. "I don't like that." But seeing the look on Shaun's face, he explained. "I mean, this is over... We don't need to bring anyone else into this, do we?"_

_ "Oh, about that, you're wrong, my friend. Very wrong. You think this is over? This will NEVER be over."_

_ Desmond had a momentary flashback to when Lucy had said the same thing to him outside the Villa Auditore in what remained of Monteriggioni. "_I'm not sure it WILL ever end, Desmond._"_

_ "We could always use people to help. We don't have to be so quiet about it now. I mean, people know what Abstergo was up to. But there's always going to be stragglers. Always going to be nut cases who buy into what the Templars were all about. They'll never let it go. We always have to be watching."_

_ Desmond sighed. He guessed he couldn't argue with that. Although it still didn't sound like enough to justify messing with other people's lives like the Assassins had messed with everyone he knew._

_ He still couldn't help smiling as he imagined what Lucy would say to him if she could hear the thoughts running through his mind. "You're just biased, Des..."_

_ He nodded. "Yeah... I guess so." He looked down at the larger piece of paper. "But what's that?"_

_ Shaun followed the nodding of his head. "Oh! That?" He reached out and took it, and gingerly unfolded it. "That... would be you."_

_ He spread out onto Desmond's knees a missing person's poster._

_ "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?"_

_ ..."Desmond Miles"..._

_ He gaped. What. The. FUCK!?_

_ He turned and stared at Shaun. "What's this? Wha–"_

_ Shaun nodded and clapped Desmond's shoulder. "Yep. That's you."_

_ Desmond lifted the poster a bit and examined himself on it._

_ He was surprised how much he'd changed over the time. His face was a lot more defined, more prominent. His body seemed wider. Fuller. More muscular. Or, hell, not even that. Just healthier. His white hoodie... which he hadn't actually worn in such a long time, it seemed like... and dark jeans. His eyes were a golden brown color back then. But they'd changed so much, now. His chest had poked out in such a cocky way. His arms hung loose, uncaring, and relaxed at his sides. His lips and nose set on his face with a straight-laced, extremely-serious expression he had worn so much back then. He recognized this picture._

_ "It's... my twenty-first birthday. The last picture anyone ever took of me."_

_ Shaun sniggered. "Well, that anyone ever took of you where you weren't naked."_

_ Desmond rolled his eyes. "Yes, sexual pictures, aside, of course." He looked back at it, and touched his own face with some kind of awkward wonder. "It WAS Christine who took this picture, though..."_

_ He closed his eyes for a second. He could remember his twenty-first birthday very clearly... The bass thudding outside the door. Christine giving him his... birthday present. The cold beer he was clutching and occasionally drinking out of, throughout..._

_ And then, there was when it got WAY crazy. He'd tended bar on his first legal shift completely naked. He'd probably contracted and given away a thousand diseases that night (or, at least, he would've thought so if his health reports hadn't shown him otherwise). He'd eventually collapsed on the bar and fallen asleep, despite not ever being totally drunk throughout the whole almost-twenty-four hour shift._

_ He shook his head with a deep breath. "Wow," and folded the poster up. "Here you go, Shaun."_

_ "Oh, no, no, no," said Shaun. "It's meant for you."_

_ "What?"_

_ "Well, that's... part of the reason I called you down here. To give you that. And to ask you what's bothering you. I mean, I know what it is, but your father's worried because your mother's worried."_

_ Desmond blinked. "What?" he repeated, numbly._

_ "Your mum's said that you sound 'upset' in your emails to her. She asked your dad to find out about it, and he asked me. And he thought it might be some kind of separation issue. You know, like some part of you misses this time in your life, so he thinks the poster will help."_

_ Desmond sighed, and slid down to sit in front of the fountain and lean back against the base of it. "I HAVE been wondering what they did, actually... What happened to them when Abstergo... Well, you know. But, I didn't actually think much about it until a week ago. I realized... Bad Weather's only about a block down the corner."_

_ Shaun fell silent, and went back to his papers. And so Desmond knew that meant he didn't approve of this idea._

_ "What?" he demanded a little more sharply than he meant to._

_ "I don't think you should get back into that, Desmond. I don't think it's really you."_

_ Desmond leaned his head forward on his knees. "I know, I know," he murmured automatically – an inbred response to this same thing he had heard from Lucy a surprising number of times, given their situation together._

_ Or, apart, more like._

_ "Well, it's up to you, of course. But I just can't escape the feeling going back there would do more harm than good."_

_ He stood and began to gather his papers. "If I were you, I wouldn't wait to send Lucy that email. She's probably going to be back soon, and you don't want it to arrive right after she returns. Looks too suspicious."_

_ Desmond nodded, but as Shaun started to walk away, a question came to the forefront of his mind. "Shaun?"_

_ Shaun stopped and turned the top half of his body. "Yes?"_

_ "I remember, when I was on Animus Island, hearing how Lucy... had told you some things."_

_ Shaun completed his turn. "What kind of things?"_

_ "You know, about... about what she said. About how she liked me?"_

_ He tried not to add mentally how "liked" was the key word._

_ Shaun paused to consider this for a moment. Desmond watched the outward signs of his mind working frantically inside. He knew that, even if Shaun had decided (for some reason) to help him with this little situation he was having with Lucy, he had known Lucy for a lot longer than Desmond had, and so to who was his loyalty greater, at the moment? Desmond, who he'd never been the closest of friend with? Or Lucy, who he hadn't exactly been the closest of friends with, either?_

_ And Desmond was pretty sure he knew what Shaun thought of the both of them at the present time. And that was that they were both behaving stupidly, at the moment. He figured Shaun probably thought he was a coward, and he'd good as said he found Desmond to be dumb during his painfully-detailed description of how Desmond should semi-attract Lucy. But he was pretty sure Shaun also thought Lucy was being a total bitch, flaunting her new relationship with Gary in front of everyone all the time._

_ Because, after all... Lucy HAD trusted Shaun with this information about how she felt about Desmond, at the time. So she obviously saw something in him perhaps Desmond hadn't seen. That, or she may have just been desperate when it happened. Desmond didn't know, but he was pretty sure Shaun was aware that Lucy was about as open and readable as an instruction manual in Spanish was to a person like Desmond – so he probably knew, Desmond would never figure it out on his own._

_ Surely, Shaun was also aware of the unique position he had come into because of this, too. Being between Desmond – the son of the Assassin leader – and Lucy – one of the highest ranking in the order, especially since the end of the war – was not exactly a small thing when considering the great things the Assassins had just done._

_ Finally, Shaun said, "You know what? You'll have to ask her about that."_

_ Desmond's face fell into a partial-glare. But the resolute way Shaun nodded made it clear that would be the end of THAT._

_ So, he nodded. "Alright."_

_ Shaun started to walk away again._

_ "Hey, Shaun?" called Desmond again._

_ "Yes?"_

_ "Why're you doing this? I mean, all this, for... for me? What's this all about?"_

_ Shaun paused, then returned to Desmond and answered quietly. "Well, truth be told... I don't think you and Lucy will do very well without each other, as your lives progress. I mean..." he looked at his hands, "...Lucy had nothing going for her before the Assassins. And you had nothing, either. And the only thing either of you have found out of this entire experience is..." he raised his head and looked Desmond in the eye, "...each other."_

_ Desmond blinked._

_ "And besides..." Shaun sighed, "...putting you through all that, and then THIS is what you get for it?" He shook his head. "This sounds like a worthy goal to me."_

_ And then, without another word, he left._

_ Desmond sat for some time underneath the large, glass ceiling and stared up. During his conversations with Shaun, the sun had set, and the skies were out._

_ And Desmond found it to be a different kind of calm. As per his life at Bad Weather, when he had first come down, sunset was to be the beginning of his shift. A shift at a job that, honestly... was very busy. So, whenever the sun was going down, he'd be excited._

_ But, by the time it set... he'd usually be mellow. But now, he had a lot to think about. And he wasn't sure he wanted to wonder._

_ An airplane buzzed by over the HQ building. Desmond wondered momentarily if it was Gary's flight._

_ He unfolded the poster again and looked at himself. With a sigh, he realized how... cool he used to be. Or rather, considered to be. He remembered how Christine used to be when he was around. He remembered how he would stand behind the bar, and turn his brain off, and talk like an idiot – a shallow, vapid, high school idiot – and his friends would hang on his every word. He remembered the lights, the drinks... The after parties. Even when he was out of it, he couldn't say 'no' to an invitation. Because he'd WANTED the attention. He'd NEEDED it._

_ He wondered how much of that had to do with his father, and everything he'd been through because of that. He wondered about Lucy, and what kind of private drawbacks she'd suffered from this war. As he looked around at the various people passing by, he realized everyone – every single one of them – had given up their all... even if they were new recruits... so that everyone else could have the normal, everyday problems that the Assassins all WISHED they could have._

_ Feeling more like an old man than he ever had, he pulled himself up by the fountain's edge. His eye caught the chicken finger lying on the bottom of it. The fish were all sort of gathered around it. His lips pulled up into a smile on the right side of his face._

_ By the time he had returned to his room, he had decided to follow Shaun's advice. He emailed Lucy._

I was thinkin' about that offer you made me. To go to _Titanic_, I mean. You still interested? It's still in town for another week...

_He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and admired his thirty-second handiwork. Yeah. That oughta do it. That sounded nice and casual, right? Typical of him..._

_ With a nod, he hit the "Send" button and closed the laptop._

_ When he turned away, his gaze fell on the cheap dirty magazine he had been about to put to use before getting the message from Shaun. He reached for it, and examined the page it was open to for a moment._

_ He decided he didn't need it. Not with the combination of Lucy, Shaun's comments about teenagers in movie theaters, and memories of Bad Weather in his mind. He threw it aside, and shrugged out of everything but his t-shirt with a speed that surprised him._

_ The rest of the long, draggy night he spent grinding out his problems with himself, like he always had, multiple times, and falling asleep in between. And each time, one hand worked his male member, while the other rubbed the fabric of his t-shirt into his chest and abs... and touched any part of his body that would help him encourage the release he needed so much._

_ An infuriating mental battle ensued as he tried to settle on which woman he imagined was servicing him. His mind flickered unwittingly between Lucy and Christine._

_ The last time, he eventually felt so frantic that he bit down on the inside of his cheek and the end of his tongue until he tasted blood to calm him down. The sweat got onto his lips and into his mouth, and that helped._

_ Unbeknownst to him, Lucy had replied and accepted his offer hours ago._

_ But finally, around seven the next morning, he fell asleep._


	11. The Note

Two weekends later, Desmond was more than a little certain he was about to go absolutely insane. As he sat behind the desk at work, typing away on the computers – doing a little extra work for a (very little) extra pay – whilst two of the three or four owners of the place stood behind him, chattering on about their drive. One of them was actually from Canada, and still, he came down quite frequently to help with things. He was the nice one, but the other only lived about an hour or two away, and even though he could be quite helpful from a business standpoint when he wasn't throwing a fit, more often than not, his presence at the place had a bad effect on the employees. And Desmond could understand why, just from hearing the stories about him. He must've realized how many of his workers hated him, though, because whenever he was around, he always tried to put on the friendliest, bubbliest personality... that just didn't work.

Just as Desmond finally gave in, and slumped unprofessionally against the desk, he heard: "Well, thank you, my friend!"

"See you later. If you need anything else, give me a call."

The first of the two passed Desmond by with relatively little interest. He and Desmond exchanged waves. For Desmond, it was a little more genuine than it might have been if he had actually been expected to look after this man over the night.

The second, nicer one seemed to notice something else was on Desmond's plate. He walked up behind him and patted his shoulder once. "How ya keepin'?" he asked in his old, country voice.

Desmond looked up and smiled. He had no idea how to answer that...

The truth was that Desmond wasn't keeping very well. Right before he'd left for work, he and Lucy had had a fight about Rebecca's leaving. Apparently, the latter of the three had decided to offer Lucy a chance to go along WITH them. But, of course, not to take Desmond. What had made it into an actual fight was... Lucy had really been seriously considering it.

"_It's not like you'd miss me that much, Desmond_," she had said. "_You could take some extra time at work, and you'd probably barely even notice I was gone._"

Desmond's heart throbbed a bit as he remembered this, and his face turned up in an involuntary wince. That the boss did not miss.

"Not too good, huh?"

"No," replied Desmond with a sigh. "Not too good, at the moment..."

"Well, can I help?" asked the boss, pulling a rotating chair up and sitting informally in it.

Desmond shrugged. "I hope so." He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his tired eyes. "The problem is, my girlfriend's... not too happy with me having this job. I mean, she likes it here," he added, hastily, realizing how bad that sounded, "but since I started doing it every weekend, she's just... not too thrilled about that. And the other problem with that is, she hasn't seen her family for business reasons of her own for a long time... and the holiday's coming up. The whole season is, actually, and... she's just... not too happy about the time we have to spend apart. We hadn't seen each other for almost two years, so... it's kind of a strain."

Desmond imagined the boss felt like he was being very nice with what he said next. "Well, why not bring her some nights?"

Desmond grinned, and hoped his guilt about having sex with Lucy in the steam room didn't show. "Yeah!" he said with mock enthusiasm. "Maybe... maybe THAT'S the key!" He leaned forward and held his hand out. "Thank you much!"

"You're welcome," responded the owner, shaking Desmond's hand. "I'd love to meet her! She's a lucky girl."

Desmond looked at his propped-up feet with a smile. "I'm a lucky man," he answered softly.

The onwer's lips pulled together, and his eyes found their way lazily to the side. "Desmond, how often do you work every weekend?"

"So far, just about every one. I mean, Jim doesn't want to do every single weekend, and I don't blame him. It's just... well, when I took the job, my girlfriend wasn't with me, so I wanted the time to pass. And I wanted the extra money. And, yeah, I do like it here a lot. It's just... it was kind of an... every-once-in-a-while thing, at the time."

The owner sighed. "I see. I think I may have to talk to Betty about getting someone to alternate them with you, then. You've been a very good employee. We appreciate that you helped us when were in such a tight spot."

Desmond nodded. "I appreciate the job. I mean, everyone here's been very understanding about things. And what with my parents coming here all the time, too–"

"–and we don't mind that," said the owner with a dismissive smile and a wave of his hand. "We much appreciate that, as well! Your parents have been very generous to us, also. But, I think it's time we talk about bringing someone else into the picture." He stopped and frowned at the display screen for the security cameras. "I'm sorry, Desmond, I had no idea it was causing you troubles at home."

Desmond's stomach churned. _Great. NOW what have I done?_ he thought. "Oh, no! It's not your job to–"

"–oh, but it is," interrupted the owner with a kindly smile. "As an employer, it is my job to create a good working environment for my employees. Especially when they've been as loyal as you." He reached forward and took a piece of printer paper from the stack on the desk beside the copier that was situated next to them. "I'm not blind, Desmond: I know what a lot of people think of Barry, around here. And he's always been a dear friend of mind, but there's one thing he and I have always disagreed on, and that's how to operate in a business environment. How to cultivate it for success."

He drew a straight line on the sheet of paper. "Say this is our spa. There are two ways it could go from here. Up–" he drew a line up, "–or down. The problem is, the goal is up. What Barry doesn't seem to understand is... going up requires a good, strong, healthy cycle to be created." He next drew a circle encompassing all of the line except the up and down additions to it. "That's how we grow. If the employees aren't happy, the place goes down a bit. If the employers don't do their part to help make the employees happy, they lose good people. When good people are lost, the guests are less happy about it, and the guests we attract are the harder, more demanding kind." He leaned in, and whispered, "You know, like the kind we have tonight."

Desmond grinned and cocked his head to the side with false innocence. "Why, whatever do you mean?"

After a short laugh, "Well, anyway... When the guests are hard and demanding, nobody wants to work here. And when that happens, we've got no business." He semi-threw the pen back into the white, plastic basket from whence it had come. "That creates a bad cycle, not a good one. It leads us down a bad road."

Desmond sighed, folded his arms across his chest, and stared down at the drawing thoughtfully. "So, I promise you this, after the holidays, we'll be looking into getting you a replacement. And in the meantime... now, I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your girlfriend, but... try to apply a little of this thinking to it, as well. You're one part owner, and she's other. And the relationship is the business. Try to create a good cycle."

Desmond nodded. "Yeah... Yeah, you're right. Thanks."

The owner again patted Desmond's shoulder, then pulled himself out of his informal seating position. "Well... it's time for me to crash. I've been up since 4:30 somebody else's time, so..."

"Ooh, yeah, it's definitely time," replied Desmond, with a grin. "You have a good night."

"And you, as well!"

He disappeared around the corner, and Desmond ran a hand through his always-short hair. In the reflection coming from the now-darkened computer screen, he could see that his eyes were beginning to go back to their old, golden color. He slowly raised a hand and touched his fingertips to his forehead. He really hadn't used Eagle Vision in a long, long time... Or been in the Animus. It was strange to think about, especially during the times it had happened. He'd always thought, it seemed like he was never going to get back to normal, was he?

He reached into his back pocket and withdrew the new smart phone his parents had insisted he let them get for him. He saw, with a hint of discouragement, that his father had messaged him several times on it. He rolled his eyes, then looked up to the ceiling with a weary exhalation. _Why?_

Withdrawing the stylus from the side slot it was stowed in, he ignored his father's message, and found Lucy's name within his limited contacts. Slowly, but surely, he began tapping away at the letters. And slowly, but surely, they formed a message.

_Lucy, I talked to Michael. You know, the Canadian owner. He says that, after the holidays, they're going to hire someone else to alternate weekends with me._

_And... I wanted to apologize to you, too. I wanted to tell you that I DO know that I've been gone all the time. I know you've been lonely, and I know I once promised you I'd never leave you as alone as you used to be. I've failed at that, several times. When I come home tomorrow, if you'll let me, I'll make it up to you. I promise I can at least do THAT much._

_And don't worry, if they don't hire anyone else after the holidays, I'll quit. I promise that, too._

_I love you._

He hit "Send". And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But nothing happened. She never responded, never wrote back. Around two o'clock that morning, Desmond sighed and turned his phone off, certain he wouldn't be hearing anything.

The steam room, he had discovered in however long he'd been working there, was also useful as an actual steam room. At it was only a half hour later that Desmond drug himself over to the barn with a sigh, and stripped. No swimming suit, after all...

As soon as he stepped into the room, the steam rolled across his body. He took a deep breath, and went to sit on the bench. He leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes, and let the condensation roll down over his shoulders and down his chest. The steam wound its way comfortingly around him, and loosened his muscles up a bit. He thought, somewhat sadly, of Lucy, and their time together there. Remembering how she'd cried on him eased some of his mild bitterness that she'd ignored his message earlier. She was so upset, so hurt... all the time, it seemed.

He put his hands behind his head, and tried to think of something he could do to make it easier for her...

And even though he didn't really want to admit it... he knew the answer.

At least the rest of the shift was calm and relaxing. Enough so that he almost went to sleep. Again. He did have to wash an extra towel, though. To make up for his.

* * *

When Desmond pulled into the driveway, he leaned his head forward against the steering wheel and sighed. He did NOT want to go and deal with an angry Lucy. He could only imagine his message – which he had meant very honestly – would only make it worse. Her response (or lack thereof) indicated she had probably taken it the wrong way, or not trusted it.

Discouraged, he climbed the stairs to his apartment and twisted the door open, rolling his eyes in the process. She'd forgotten to lock the door. He wondered if she was even back from Rebecca's...

His eyes caught sight of the plate of food sitting on the table, and he jumped, slightly. Lucy was not only there, but... she'd still made him breakfast.

Although he was actually hungry, he hurried towards the bedroom quickly, but stopped when, instead, he found her on the couch. His heart softened as he saw that she was curled up in a blanket, and was holding a piece of paper. The same piece of paper he'd been trying to get away from her for months.

With a quiet breath, he edged out of his shoes and crossed the carpeted floor to get it from her. Her sleeping hands surrendered it with little fight.

When he opened it, his eyes widened as he recognized, in his own messy scrawl, another message he had written for her. Three years ago.

* * *

"_Desmond?" came the singsong voice of Lucy. "Right here."_

_ He turned, and saw she sitting on one of those black, metal benches in between some large plants that were growing in pots set around the HQ. A courtesy of his mother._

_ He approached Lucy with a smile. "Hi," he said, huskily, and accepted her hug. "Thanks so much for coming."_

_ "Are you kidding? Thank YOU. I didn't think I'd have anyone to hang out with while Gary was gone."_

_ Desmond jumped back with mock-surprise. "Gary's gone?"_

_ "Yep," Lucy sighed. "Sure is. Your father sent him and his team out on an emergency mission. To Ireland. Some Templar stragglers are holding out there, and they've killed three of us."_

_ "Gary has a team..."_

_ "Yes, and they're the best for this job, I think. I was going to go, but they needed me here, so... I couldn't."_

_ "Oh," was all Desmond could say._

_ So, he had been kinda right before. She really HAD wanted to be with Gary. Great._

_ "Well, I'm... er, sorry it couldn't be done." He forced a smile on his face. "But, I bet we'll have a good time tonight." He held out his arm playfully to her. "My lady?"_

_ "Good sir," she responded with a bright grin and accepted. "Where to first?"_

_ "I was thinking you might be hungry. And if you're not, there's a good chance you will be before the movie's over."_

_ Lucy nodded. Yeah. It's a long movie, isn't it?"_

_ "Sure is."_

_ And they started walking. There was a silence between them that was comfortable even when they HADN'T been romantically involved with each other. Occasionally, as they went through the very large HQ building, they would point out some nice features._

_ Desmond experienced a brief moment of guilt when they passed Lila, who looked mildly surprised (but obligingly happy) by the sight of Lucy on his arm. He wondered if he'd been wrong to lead her on as he had..._

_ But all thoughts of that were forgotten when they stepped out into the busy street, and Lucy snuggled into him._

_ But there was something... almost nervous about how she did it, too. "You okay?" he couldn't help asking._

_ "Mm hmm," she replied, with half the cheer she had been exhibiting a moment ago. "It's just, sometimes the city bothers me. I grew up in a small town."_

_ Eagerly, Desmond latched onto this conversation piece... and opportunity to learn more about her for future reference. "Oh? Tell me a little bit more about that."_

_ "It was in Illinois, actually. A little town there, where my mom had been born. We owned this house. This small, but beautiful house. I remember the upstairs most clearly. There were little cubbyholes built into the walls there. I used to put my blankets and pillows in there, and sleep at nights. Dad always shook his head with a smile when he saw me. Mom would tell him to leave me alone. She was kidding too, of course._

_ "There was a big, open field of grass behind the house. Mom would be hanging the laundry out on the clothesline. I'd be running around in the grass. I remember my father teaching my how to fly a kite. One of my favorites movies as a kid was _Mary Poppins_, of course..."_

_ "But, of course," said Desmond, with a snap of his fingers and thump to his chest. "Flying nannies, what more could you ask for?"_

_ "Oh, Desmond..." sighed Lucy. "I understand if it might not be your favorite movie, but–"_

_ "–I like it," interrupted Desmond defensively._

_ Lucy eyed him suspiciously. "Really?"_

_ "Yeah. It was actually the very first movie my parents would let me see. Dad seemed to think it was free enough of the Templars' influence that it wouldn't cause me any physical or mental harm." He rolled his eyes. "I remember what I was most fascinated by was the horses coming off the merry-go-round..."_

_ "And the fox hunt," said Lucy, knowingly._

_ Desmond looked at her. "Yeah. How did you–"_

_ "–I heard so from your mom."_

_ "...Oh."_

_ She giggled, and poked his arm. "And I figured, you know... you men and your animals and violence..."_

_ He rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. I've always been an animal person..."_

_ "You always seemed to like the dogs on the Farm, your mom said."_

_ "True," he conceded with a sigh. "I did play with them a lot." He looked up and saw a sign for a family restaurant. _Oh... right._ "Anyway... you were saying?"_

_ Lucy shrugged. "That's it. That's all I was saying."_

_ Desmond looked back at her disbelievingly. "You didn't have any friends or boyfriends or memorable teachers or anything?"_

_ Lucy shook her head, eyes thoughtfully gazing at the pavement ahead of them. "People didn't seem to like me a whole lot back then," she said. "I mean, don't get the wrong idea." She wrapped her other arm around his that she was clinging to. "People weren't openly mean to me. They didn't ignore me, or treat me badly, or anything. I just... must not have been special enough to grab anyone's attention. My teachers were perfectly ordinary, I had one or two friends... that always seemed to be busy with someone else if I wanted to hang out. I met Rebecca in college, and by then, I knew about the Assassins, so–"_

_ "–you are SO special."_

_ She looked up at him with a questioning expression on her face. "What?"_

_ "You are SO special," he repeated. "I mean, look at everything you've done."_

_ "Yeah," she sighed. "Look at it. A war criminal, and an emotional wreck."_

_ Desmond stopped. "Hey, give yourself a break, Luce. This wasn't easy. And you did it the longest."_

_ Lucy shook her head. "Rebecca did it the longest."_

_ "Okay, but still..." pressed Desmond, with a hint of irritation. "Lucy, you gotta let that go." He placed one of his hands on hers, both wrapped securely around his bicep. "We all know what happened there now, okay? It's over." He sighed, and pulled her into a hug. "It's over."_

_ She nodded against his chest, too formally for his tastes, and then pulled back with an unconvincing smile. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right, Desmond. You are."_

_ They continued walking. The movie theater was approaching on the end of the next block, and Desmond was trying to scan the aligning streets frantically and subtly at the same time for a nice-ish place to take her to eat._

_ Within moments, he spotted the perfect place. "How does Subway sound?" he asked._

_ Not too fancy, but not a dirty, cruddy little fast food joint, either. Healthy-esque food, and good food, by most accounts._

_ "Ooh," she moaned. "Sounds good. My God, I haven't been there in a long while, and–"_

_ At that moment, her stomach growled._

_ "...and, you're hungry," he finished with a grin._

_ "Starving," she confirmed._

_ As they passed through the doors and got in line, Desmond settled into an old pattern of his, whenever he'd actually taken a woman on a date, and not just hooked up with her in a fit of carnal rage at the bar. Waiting in line to eat was the perfect place to appreciate the moment. Although he and his dates were rarely quiet, it was the perfect time to reflect on how... good it felt to have a date, in the first place._

_ Especially with Lucy! Inwardly, Desmond felt as if he could just kiss Shaun with no hesitations at all. This was working out EXTREMELY well. While they stood in line, and eventually ordered, Lucy didn't let go of his arm. With either of hers. Not even while he paid for it, and took their food. He chose a remote spot, in front of one of the windows with the neon light signs – the "OPEN" one, in big red letters. It cast a glow on them as they sat there._

_ And while they did, Desmond coaxed a little bit more out of her about her extended family. He learned that she had two aunts named Maryanne and Rhonda on her mother's side, and an aunt named Leanna and an only uncle named Phil on her fathers' side. She and her aunts had been fairly close, especially with her Aunt Maryanne. On her dad's side, it was her uncle who used to toss her up and catch her whenever he greeted her._

_ Desmond took her hand, and rubbed it gently with his thumb when she talked about how he had died when he worked as a trucker. At the funeral, she had sat with her grandma, who would die of old age just two years later._

_ As they stepped out of the restaurant, and back out to the streets, she hugged him from the side. And with the usual formality. "Thank you, Desmond."_

_ He returned her warm embrace. "You're welcome." He paused. "For what?"_

_ "Listening to me talk about my family. It just... helps."_

_ "Oh, well... good," he said. "Honestly, it's interesting to learn a little more about you."_

_ They separated then, and she returned to her position on his arm as they headed towards the theater._

_ As he predicted, the line leading into _Titanic_'s 3D showing was sizable. Lucy looked around at all the merchandise focused on it that was spread around. There were posters, cardboard cutouts, and themed-cups and popcorn buckets, among other things._

_ He leaned in to whisper to her. "You want a big Jack-and-Rose popcorn?"_

_ She laughed slightly through her nose. "Will you split it with me?"_

_ He gave her a thumbs up. "It's a deal."_

_ "That sounds great, then," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. "With butter and... a LITTLE salt."_

_ "A 'little'?" he inquired._

_ "Salt's bad for you."_

_ "Ah. Yes, of course."_

_ She looked at him, and saw he was grinning._

_ "I meant, bad for YOU, in particular, Desmond," she said with a prod of her finger to his lower jaw. "You ate way too much of it when you were working at that bar."_

_ For a moment, Desmond wondered if he shouldn't play dumb about the background check Shaun had done on him and ask her how she knew that. But he decided against it._

_ "I like salty things. Or, well, sometimes," he qualified. "I guess not so much in recent times, but still..."_

_ After that, she fell silent until they were in the movie. Once both had run to the bathroom right before it started, she settled in with her black, fancy jacket still on her shoulders._

_ "You still cold?" he whispered. "Want my hoodie?"_

_ She nodded, eyes still on the screen as a preview of some movie Desmond didn't recognize played. "Please. It IS cold in here..."_

_ It took a bit of wriggling, but soon, she was comfortably (if awkwardly) wrapped in both Desmond's hoodie and her jacket. There was no hood on her coat, and so the hood from Desmond's shirt hung out the back over the seat, providing her loose hair with a nest._

_ As per Shaun's overbearingly-descriptive instructions, Desmond hung out limply with a leg crossed over the other and his arms dangling loosely behind the chair._

_ And then the movie started. By the time all the best moments had come, Desmond was no longer in the position to do that. Lucy had absentmindedly taken his hand when Old Rose's story began, and the digital choir had begun singing its music. By the time the Irish party in the third class had come around, she was smiling and laughing without all the lines of worry that usually hung around her always-beautiful face. When they were flying at the head of the ship, Lucy put her head back on the chair. By the time Jack was drawing the portrait, it had found its way down to Desmond's shoulder. She jumped cutely when the ship collided with the ice burg, and like most people, the tears had started lightly when Rose chose to jump back on the ship to stay with Jack. During their last moments together in the ocean, Lucy's hands squeezed Desmond t-shirt by his chest. And when the final scene rolled around, the whole theater stood up for the applause when Jack and Rose kissed for the last time. Lucy smiled at Desmond as the credits rolled..._

_ Still, no one left once the screen cut to black for the credits. But when she put her head back down on him to listen to the songs, he decided to risk something that he had been considering with a frantically-beating heart since the middle of the movie. A frantically-beating heart that didn't stop while he sang the song quietly under his breath to her as she let her read quite contentedly on the fabric of his t-shirt. She seemed nice and relaxed as they joined the rest of the crowd queuing out following the end of the credits, and when they stepped out, it was dark outside._

_ She took a deep breath, and accepted the napkin he had saved for her to clear her face off with. "Thank you so much for this, Desmond."_

_ Her hair was glowing in the combined light of the moon. Her face was completely relaxed. Her eyes focused on him with a sparkle he'd never seen in ANY woman's eyes that were directed at him._

_ He stared at her, the muscles in his face going weak. "You're welcome," he managed to get out with a slight lump in his throat._

_ "Are you okay?" she asked, suddenly concerned._

_ He cleared his throat. "Very much so," he said truthfully. He then offered her his arm again. "Shall we?"_

_ She accepted, and they began their walk back. The whole way there, she talked about the movie. Desmond would normally have joined in, but he saw no need: she was more than entertained enough._

_ When they reached the HQ, she shivered a little on their way to the elevators._

_ "Which room are you in?" he asked. "What floor, I mean..."_

_ "Seven."_

_ "Oh..." he said, jutting his lips out. "Want to have a drink, first? I have some in my room."_

_ "That sounds fantastic."_

_ Instead of hitting the seven button, Desmond hit the nine. Within minutes, they were outside his door, and it was there that he shivered._

_ "Oh, Desmond, here! I'm sorry..."_

_ She began to take off the hoodie._

_ "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no..." he said. "No, that's... not why I shivered."_

_ And it wasn't. It was just the images of everything he wanted to happen between them once that door in front of him opened and closed..._

_ "Well, here, I'm much warmer. Take it, anyway. You need it back, and now's as good a time as ever."_

_ Desmond shrugged, "True," and accepted the hoodie._

_ Once the door had closed behind them, he hurried to lay it down on the bed he didn't use, so nothing would take her smell off of it._

_ "So..." he said, businesslike, "...what's your pleasure? I've got... beer, I've got a fancy wine of some sort here... If you want harder liquor, I've only got this bottle of vodka for mixing things up, here..."_

_ "What kind of wine?" she asked._

_ "Pinot Noir. Here..." he offered her a chair._

_ "Why, thank you, good sir," she said, and sat in it. "And the wine sounds good. Just a glass."_

_ "Just a glass, it is, then."_

_ Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lucy appraising the deftness with which he uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into the glasses. And when he handed her hers and took a seat catty-cornered to her to lean back and fold his leg up as he had in the movie, she inclined her head._

_ "Very good, Desmond. I bet you were an entertaining bartender."_

_ "Oh, yeah..." he said. "You bet. The best. At everything, and everything that came with the job."_

_ She laughed at his playful grin and another astute snap of his fingers._

_ But then she fell quiet for a moment. "So... what exactly came with that job, other than getting slashed across the chest with the tip of a knife?"_

_ Desmond cocked his head to the side and observed his condensing glass of wine in his hand. "Surprisingly, a lot. I did bar tending, security, janitor work, dealt with the orders of the food and liquor, trained new employees sometimes, and kept Christine happy."_

_ "Christine?" asked Lucy, with polite interest._

_ "Yeah, Christine. The owner. She and her father let me live with them when I made it to New York. I don't think her father liked me, but she did, and he wouldn't have refused her anything she wanted. She's actually older than I am. I was nineteen when I ended up in New York. She was twenty-three. Or twenty-four, I can't remember. When her father died, I tended the bar for a year illegally. She was the only one who knew I was using a fake ID, and all that shit..."_

_ "How did her father die?"_

_ "Killed in an alley. Wrong place at the wrong time." Desmond sighed. "He was accidentally shot by a gangster who was in a firefight with a cop."_

_ "Oh!" replied Lucy with gasp. "Oh, my God..."_

_ "Or, so they told us. Christine took over the bar after that, and she needed the help – both financially and physically – and I didn't exactly want to stay with her and do nothing, so... I quit my job at the gas station I'd been working at and tended the bar."_

_ "Is that how you 'kept her happy'?"_

_ A small grin played at Desmond's lips. Both because the memories of keeping Christine happy were usually good, and because Lucy's voice had betrayed a hint of jealousy. But he continued to stare into his wine glass as he answered, aware of her eyes fully focused on him as he did so. "No, I kept her happy exactly the way I think you're thinking." He turned his eyes – just his eyes – to her, and could see there was a slight blush forming on her cheeks. "It was my favorite part of the job, to be honest. That–" (he rotated the glass slightly in his hands) "–and tending the bar naked some nights."_

_ Lucy's eyes widened. "Wow... Must have attracted a lot of business that way."_

_ "Mm hmm. That's what Christine said, but honestly, half the people or more there were naked most of the time, anyway. We didn't call it 'Bad Weather' for nothing... I think the old name used to be the 'Fox and Gun', though..."_

_ Lucy raised her eyebrows once. "I have no idea."_

_ A momentary silence fell between them, but Desmond soon broke it with: "Thank you for saying that, Luce."_

_ "What?"_

_ "That my naked body would attract business. In the weirdest of ways, given this conversation... that was... flattering."_

_ In truth, it was arousing, and Desmond was grateful for the low lighting in his room, as well as his choice to wear black pants that night. It disguised the erection forming down below quite nicely. The fantasies of Lucy beckoning him to either of the two beds behind them were getting more and more prominent in his head..._

_ "Well... you DO have a... nice body, Desmond," she said, softly._

_ This time, he couldn't stop the grin forming around his mouth. He turned his eyes back to her. "Oh, I know."_

_ She shook her head with a single laugh. "Is that going to be our toast, then? You know, we haven't actually taken a drink of this wine, yet..."_

_ Desmond gave her the eyebrows. "Sounds good."_

_ They each took their glasses, and leaned forward._

_ "A toast, then..." she said lightly._

_ "To my awesome body!" he finished with husk._

_ And, cocking his head to the side again, they took a drink._

_ He hoped she didn't think he hadn't noticed her shiver in reaction to his voice..._

* * *

_It was after Lucy had left – refusing to let him walk her down to her room only to have to turn around and come all the way back up to his – that his eyes fell on the notepad and paper lying on the table where he was cleaning up their wine glasses and closing the bottle back up._

_ He dropped the two glasses and ran (a grand total of two steps) over to his hoodie. The one she had been wearing most of the night. He pulled the two pockets inside out._

_ It was gone._

_ The note was gone._

_ The note he had written on the off-chance that he had found himself brave enough to slip it somewhere in one of her own pockets..._

* * *

It was the note he was reading now.

He exhaled sharply, and ducked his head into his fingers. Although he hadn't felt it in his eyes, he was crying.

He had never known if she'd ever found that note, or not.

And since she'd never said anything, he assumed it had just fallen out of his pocket at some point during the course of the events of that night.

Looking at her now... all curled up underneath a thin blanket... hand outstretched and closed around the note that she didn't know in her subconscious he had taken from her hands... he just couldn't stop himself.

Frantically, he turned, and took everything out of his pockets. He kicked his shoes off, pulled both shirts off over his head. Dropped his jeans around his ankles, and pulled his socks off he leaned down help his feet out of his jeans. If she was going to be cold, he would, too.

He then climbed onto the couch behind her, and pulled her up against his body. He held her, kissing her and whispering her name, and how much he loved her to her in her sleep.

When he finally calmed down, he caught sight of the note as that had fallen from his hands in his frantic undressing. It had fallen face up. Before he closed his eyes, and went to sleep, with the sunlight touching the blinds lightly behind him and above the couch, he read it one last time...

* * *

"Lucy...

I love you.

Desmond"


	12. Long StoryAll For You

_Desmond froze with his hand on the door. What was he doing here?_

_ He stood just outside Bad Weather. The bar. HIS bar. Where he was pretty sure he shouldn't be. The entire way over, he'd looked over his shoulder like a scared kid, on his way to commit some kind of serious crime that he was mortally afraid of getting caught doing. He knew it was stupid that he felt that way about this. He was a twenty-six-year-old man. If he wanted to go to a bar, he could._

_ But why was he going back to THIS bar? Things had gone well with Lucy at the movie, hadn't they? And Gary wouldn't be back for a few more days... He should be spending the time looking for ways to capitalize on that. And no matter how much he tried to convince himself he just wanted to check up on old friends and see how everyone had turned out after all this time, he knew better than that._

_ He sighed, and looked again over his shoulder. But the thought he had about just walking away and going back to the HQ didn't last for more than a second. He pushed his way through the front doors with both arms and re-entered the bar scene._

_ The lights and the sounds hit him full force only a second afterwards. There it was, exactly as he'd remembered leaving it. Or being stolen from it, rather. He still couldn't think of that night without a shudder. Those two men cornering him on his way out of work. Injecting him with something. Him waking up with his hands bound behind his back, and a blindfold on. All he could remember from that point was the sound of airplanes..._

_ He shook his head to clear the memory. His residential Assassin Therapist had recommended briefly revisiting it sometimes, but not lingering. He couldn't have agreed more._

_ He wound his way through the people, eyes set determinedly on the bar ahead. A grin began to play at his lips as he came closer. He recognized the man behind the bar. Adrian._

So, Adrian's still working here, huh?_ he thought. _I wonder if... _But there he was. The other guy Desmond was hoping to see. Nick._

_ Desmond stopped short, taken aback by the surprise of seeing them again. There they were. They were really and truly there, in front of him. There were grins on their faces while they eyed the two women they were chatting with beside them. Desmond recognized one of them, too. A French woman, who had always come and sat in that exact same stool and talked to him about her family. He felt mildly ashamed that he didn't remember her name..._

_ And then, coming down the bar with a tray of food and two drinks in her hand, that was where he saw her again._

_ She was beautiful. Still beautiful, that was. Her long, straight, white-blonde hair was tied back in a basic ponytail. She was wearing black pants and a white t-shirt with some kind of artwork on it that he couldn't see through the black apron she wore. The lowly-lit environment didn't prevent his now-sharp senses from zooming in on her sharp, dark green eyes. And already, he caught himself tracing patterns in the freckles on her face._

_ He realized his mouth had fallen open. He exhaled sharply and closed it._

_ From behind him, two dancing people collided with his back, causing him to lurch forward. He caught himself on the side of a table, where some of the other patrons were playing cards._

_ "Sorry!" he apologized loudly over the music. "Got knocked over."_

_ "Aw, man, that's no problem!" answered one of the (drunk) re-haired men there._

_ He reached up and clapped Desmond's shoulder, a gesture which Desmond returned with as much ease built into him from the memory of his days there as if he'd never left. "Enjoy your game, gentlemen," he said before setting off for the bar._

_ "Hey, thanks a lot, man!" he heard another of them call after him._

_ He offered a brief smile over his shoulder for a moment, and then went back to looking for Christine. She'd disappeared sometime during his encounter with the card players. He exhaled again, this time with frustration. Folding his arms across his chest, he proceeded to the bar._

_ There were no seats near Nick as he reached it, so he slid into a stool on the other side of a man and his wife two people in between them. Directly in front of him was the menu. His face turned up into a smile while he read the specials on the front._

_ "HOUSE DRINK: SHIRLEY TEMPLAR," it read._

_ "Still here, huh?" he muttered to the paper, plucking it from its paper clip on the front of the menu. "Bet no one makes it like I did..."_

_ "Can I get ya anything, sir?"_

_ Desmond looked up from his paper. It was Adrian talking to him. He looked so worn out... His skin was stretched, and his blue eyes were sunken in. He looked like he hadn't shaved in weeks. But what had Desmond suddenly grinning is that he looked happy..._

_ "Sir?"_

_ "Oh, uh... Yeah! Sure, man," he stuttered. "I'll have the, uh... Shirley Templar sounds good."_

_ "Excellent choice," responded Adrian, with a smile. "Man, this thing really took off..."_

_ Desmond leaned forward on his elbows. "What did?" he asked with mock-intrigue. "The drink?"_

_ "Yeah," said Adrian. "One of our good buddies who used to work here? He put it together. Or, well, he didn't really come up with MOST of it. He used to say, 'The usual. I just add some gin.'" And it was gin that Adrian was pouring into the glass as he shook his head and sighed. "Good ol' Desmond. Christine finally told me his REAL name about a week ago. Always told me his name was Anthony. Wonder why..." He slid the drink towards Desmond deftly. "Here you go, man..."_

_ "Uh, thanks," answered Desmond. He raised the cup and took a drink out of it. _Not bad_, he thought, jutting his lower lip out at it._

_ But he wanted to know more about what Adrian thought. "Maybe he was hiding."_

_ Adrian looked up from the glass he was cleaning. "What?"_

_ "Your friend?" pressed Desmond. "Maybe he was hiding."_

_ Adrian shrugged. "Maybe he was. I don't know. I just know, I don't care what his name was, I miss the guy sometimes..."_

_ "Miss who?"_

_ Desmond froze._

_ It was Christine. She had come over with her notepad out and a pen._

_ He ducked his head slightly. Instantly, he felt sick. Perhaps he SHOULDN'T have done this... Maybe he should've at least sat at a table instead..._

_ "Desmond," answered Adrian. "This nice guy, here was just asking about him."_

_ Christine laughed. "Yeah? That's funny. The number of times I get a question about Desmond... Especially from the ladies." She clicked her tongue and flicked her head to the side as she opened the cash register. "It's been since the end of August since he was here last."_

_ Desmond's lip twitched. What... exactly... did THAT mean?_

_ "You still miss him, though?" he asked, taking a drink from his cup._

_ Christine nodded as she worked the register. "Hell, yeah! He was the best bartender we've had since I can remember." She grinned sideways at Adrian. "Oh, um... no offense."_

_ Adrian waved casually. "That ain't why you miss him, though..."_

_ A sly smile spread across Christine's lips and cheeks. "No. It's not."_

_ Desmond took another drink, and tried not to smile too much, himself. Especially as the flooding of memories came flowing back into his head._

_ "You never did answer me from a day ago," continued Adrian. "You ever think about talkin' to that guy we saw on TV? William? You said he has Des' last name..."_

_ Christine shook her head. "I don't know if I could or not. If he IS Des' dad, well... Des said he could be something of an asshole."_

_ Desmond pressed his lips tighter together. That was exactly how he'd said it the first time she'd ever asked about his father._

_ "Well, yeah, but if it IS him, he probably knows where Des is!" countered Adrian._

_ Desmond turned his head to the side and pretended to eyeball the dancers, with a click of his tongue in somewhat-belated answer to Christine's._

_ "So? It's not my issue! I miss Des as much as everyone else, but Des said he left mostly because of his dad! He didn't want his dad to find him! I'm not taking the risk..." Her voice shook a bit. "For Desmond's sake."_

_ Desmond turned in time to see her blink a few times. She straightened herself up and shook her head._

_ Adrian put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll just have to hope he shows, then."_

_ "That's right. It's only been a few months," came another voice. Nick. He had just slid into the seat beside Desmond, the man and wife that were there before gone. "He always said he'd come back if he ever had to go away for a while."_

_ A sharp, stabbing pain went through Desmond. How could he do this to these people? In all the time he'd been gone, he'd maybe given them a few thoughts. Christine the most, and usually whenever he needed some inspiration for his alone time._

_ But THEY'D never forgotten him. They were here, in fact, worrying about him. Talking about him. Reminiscing about the good old days. Christine was CRYING about him._

_ He finished his drink and turned back to the bar. "Could I get another one of those?" he asked._

_ "Sure thing, buddy," replied Adrian. "You like it?"_

_ "It's good," answered Desmond, letting his voice fall quieter. "I think I've had it before."_

_ "Yeah?" asked Nick beside him. "You been here before?"_

_ "Oh, yeah," answered Desmond. "It's been a while. A few months, actually. But I lived here for about six years." He leaned back in his seat and placed his hands behind his head. "This is Bad Weather, isn't it?"_

_ "Sure is!" answered Christine proudly._

_ Desmond ran his eyes up and down her for a moment. Like he used to do. "Yeah, I been here before..."_

_ And just like before, Christine blushed. "Well, welcome back," she said. She leaned forward on the bar. "Can I get you anything else?"_

_ Desmond shrugged. "I'll just have another drink. For now..." He cocked his head to the side and turned up his face in a half-grin. "Check with me later."_

_ "You got it!" she said._

_ One of the cooks prodded her in the back. "Hey, Christine. Order's up."_

_ "Be right back," she said. And with that, she took the tray from the cook – whom Desmond didn't recognize – and disappeared into the crowd._

_ Desmond followed her with his eyes for a moment, but spun back around when Adrian set his drink down on the bar with a light clunk. When he turned around to drink it, he saw Nick appraising him out of the corner of his eye._

_ He turned and resumed his half-grin. "What?"_

_ "Be careful with that one," warned Nick. "She's... feisty."_

_ As his drink reached his lips, Desmond laughed once and set it back down. With one of the napkins Adrian had given him with the drinks, he brushed the misplaced alcohol away from his lips. "Feisty, huh? I don't think I've ever used THAT word to describe her..."_

_ "What, you met her before?" asked Adrian, handing a soda can to someone that reached over Nick's other shoulder._

_ Desmond turned and again cocked his head to the side. He jutted both lips out and raised his eyebrows. When he spoke, his voice was the same low, husky voice he'd used almost constantly when he'd tended the bar there. "Yeah..." he answered. "I met her before. I know her well."_

_ Nick's eyes widened, and he lowered his drink to the bar slowly. "No way..."_

_ "Oh, come on, buddy, you said it yourself," said Desmond, his arms out. "It's only been a few months."_

_ Adrian's mouth fell open. "It can't be, though. It CAN'T be you..."_

_ "Why not?" asked Desmond, his face broken out into a full-fledged grin now._

_ "Because, you're just so-so... _different_!" exclaimed Adrian. "I mean, LOOK at you! Look at how (much) taller you've gotten! Look at your arms, man! Holy shit, what happened to you!?"_

_ And the relaxed smile on his face let Desmond know he was kidding. He knew it was him..._

_ "Desmond..." sighed Nick._

_ Desmond turned and looked him in the eye. "Yes."_

_ "It's you..."_

_ "It's me."_

_ "Really?"_

_ "Yes."_

_ "It's really you?"_

_ "Yes, Nick. It's me. I promise you, Nick, it's me. It's really me."_

_ Nick took a deep breath, and blinked his eyes twice. There were obviously tears building up. Nick had always been a kind of sensitive guy. Sometimes, he'd been made fun of for it. And Desmond had always defended him._

_ He reached out with both arms and pulled his best friend of most of his life into an unashamed hug. Nick's hands gripped his back tightly._

_ "Holy shit," he said, pulling back and examining Desmond from head to foot. "Look at you. What's happened?"_

_ Desmond smiled, and realized his own eyes were a little wet. He tightened his grip on Nick's shoulders. "I was, um–"_

_ But at that moment, Christine reappeared behind the bar. "I'm back."_

_ "Chr-Christine," began Nick, in a shaky voice._

_ "Some of these people drive me absolutely fucking crazy." She turned to Desmond again, her sly smile back in place. "It's nice to meet someone with a little class in here every once in a while."_

_ Desmond looked at his feet for a moment, to give himself a second to compose himself. And when he looked back up, his grin had been replaced with the look Nick and Adrian had always called "x-ray vision"._

_ "Yeah," he replied, husk in full force. "I remember how you and I used to sit here and bitch instead of cleaning up."_

_ Christine blinked twice. "I'm sorry?"_

_ Nick began to shake again. He collapsed against Desmond's chest. "Chr-Chris..." he started to say, while Desmond's arms tightened protectively around him._

_ "Chris, take a look at him," said Adrian._

_ He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned from him to look at Desmond. Her eyebrows furrowed. Her eyes, themselves, moved up and down him, studying..._

_ Desmond – though he still had Nick against him – looked back. His golden eyes moved back and forth between hers. He set his face back into the hard mask he'd always worn during those days..._

_ And suddenly, it seemed to come to her._

_ She gasped, and raised both hands to her mouth. "Desmond," she breathed._

_ He smiled, if somewhat weakly. "Yeah, Chris... It's me..."_

_ Slowly, she let her hands fall down to the bar. And they stared into each other's eyes for a moment..._

_ Then she whipped herself like a rubber band over the bar. With strength Desmond didn't remember her having, she pushed Nick away from him and gripped him with both of her own arms. Desmond returned her embrace, their bodies slowly swaying back and forth, side to side..._

_ He looked up for a moment, and saw that the people in the bar had begun to take notice of his reunion with them. The dancers had stopped. The music had, as well. He smiled as he began to hear his assumed name murmured throughout the crowd._

_ "Anthony..."_

_ "Anthony?"_

_ "It's Anthony!"_

_ Against his chest, Christine was calming herself. "Jesus Christ," she said. "Where the hell have you been?"_

_ He shrugged. "Long story..."_

* * *

A faint chattering reached his extensively-sensitive ears. His eyelids began to open. Slowly, at first... but soon the blurriness in his vision began to clear.

The voice belonged to Lucy. Who else? She was saying goodbye to someone on the phone. Probably Rebecca. He heard a clicking sound, and her light footsteps tracing around the kitchen. Since he'd last been in the Animus, his additional sense seemed to have honed itself. He frequently caught himself counting breaths and footsteps. Sometimes, he could tell where people had been, or even make a good guess where they might be going.

Sometimes, there were drawbacks to this, as well. Like the bright sunlight falling through the blinds above him. He squinted his eyes and raised a hand to shield them.

"Desmond?"

He rolled onto his side, feeling like a weary old man, and looked in the general direction of the voice. Lucy was standing there with a multicolored bowl in one hand and a brighter smile on her face than he'd seen since she'd come back to him.

"Yes?" he sighed.

"What're you doing up already? I didn't wake you, did I?"

"Kinda..."

Her face fell, in the slightest of ways. He probably wouldn't have noticed it without his extra sense...

But he didn't want her to get the wrong idea. "No, no!" he hasted to assure her. "I'm glad for it..." He dragged himself up and sat down with his legs crossed in front of him. "I... wanted to talk to you."

She set the bowl down on the table beside her. "Me, too," she said, and crossed the floor to join him on the couch.

He took her hands, once she'd sat down opposite him. "I... wrote to you last night."

She nodded. "I saw it this morning." She reached up, and touched the side of his face. "Thank you."

He smiled, weakly. "You're welcome. And, I meant it. After holidays, I'll quite, if there's no one else there."

She shook her head. "You can't do that, Desmond. You like that job."

He glared to the side. "I'm not so sure about that. It's caused so many problems, and my parents are there all the time, and– "

Her fingertips pressed his lips back together. "Desmond. You like that job. I understand that."

"I've seen the results of a woman who's too understanding," he said against her fingers, shaking his head back at her. "I've seen what happens when a man doesn't figure it out. I lived with one, remember?"

Lucy removed her hand, and something spasmed across her face he couldn't identify. For a moment, she was silent.

But then, "It eats you alive, doesn't it? Your parents..."

His expression turned puzzled. "What?"

"Your parents doing all this bothers you. They pay for a lot of this." She gestured around at the apartment they were in. "And it gets to you a lot more than you want to let on, doesn't it?"

Desmond shrugged. "I've made no secret of it," he replied, and rubbed his arm. "I don't like relying on my parents. I can't escape the feeling I'm going to pay for it, someday. I don't know how, but I bet it's coming."

Lucy sighed. "Yeah... I know. If I had parents like yours, I'd be suspicious, too. But Desmond..." and she looked him in the eye, "...I don't think your parents want to take anything from you. I think, when they said they wanted to make it up to you... they really meant it."

He opened his mouth to protest, but the top half of her body shot forward and silenced him with a light kiss.

"I'm not saying you should quit your job," she continued, softly. "I'm not even saying you should trust them, given everything that's happened." She let herself fall back into place. "But I think you should give them a chance." And she sighed again, and ran her hand through her hair. "God knows, if I could find my family, I would... I don't want you to end up here. You HAVE your family. Be glad for it. Or, try, at least..."

There was a building lump in his throat. This was the conclusion he had come to in the steam room last night. Today, he would write to Mrs. Stillman. Seeing her upset about it made the prospect feel a little less upsetting. He wanted her all to himself, but there was just no denying that he'd lose her entirely if he didn't act soon. And it was wrong to keep putting her through this, when he had the power to make it better for her.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Okay," he whispered. "I promise."

She smiled back at him, equally as weakly.

"No. Really," he pressed, and held his arms out. "I do. I promise."

She crawled forward into his embrace without hesitation. When his arms closed around her, he could feel the muscles in her loosening.

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm sorry, Lucy," he said softly. "I really, really am."

"I know. I heard you, last night."

He turned his head down and rested it on hers. "Sorry," he apologized again. "I was... having a moment."

She giggled. "I noticed. And I see you found your note..."

His eyebrows pulled together. "Yeah. Speaking of that, I wanted to ask you–"

"–why I never said anything?"

Inwardly, he stiffened. She had already prepared some kind of response. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. It might hurt...

She took a deep breath. Then she sat up, and took his hands once again. "Desmond... I found the note on the table, while you were pouring the drinks. I... That night was..."

"...'amazing'?" he tried.

A slight smile spread to her lips. "Yes. Yes, it was pretty amazing. But, back then, I was with Gary, and I just couldn't... I didn't know what to do." She gripped her hair with both hands. "I wondered about you, all the time. I didn't know how you felt. I didn't know when you'd written it! I wanted to asked, but I was afraid of what would happen with me and Gary, at the time. And now..." she reached behind her to the side table and took it from there, "...I know what happened, I just– I can't help wondering what I missed, and I– "

His hands covered hers. "–Luce, stop."

She looked up, and there were a few frustrated tears there.

Tears he reached out and brushed away. "I get it. It was a cluster fuck. A total cluster fuck." He sighed, and leaned back into the couch's fabric. "It's probably, all things considered, for the best..."

She shook her head frantically. "No. Shaun told me some of the things you went through. Some of the things he had to help you with. Desmond... I didn't know you were in such pain. Just for ME?!"

He shook his head, thankful for all the borrowed patience that came with an age far beyond his own from his times in the Animus. "Luce... It wasn't all JUST for you..."

He raised his tired gaze to her frantic, but confused one.

"It was ALL for YOU. Don't make it sound like it wasn't worth it. Or like YOU weren't worth it. You were. Every second of it." He nodded his head once, as if to strengthen his point. "And I'd do it all again, if I had to. Just to get back to this point..."

His hand touched her cheek. His thumb rubbed her trembling, lower lip.

"I'll do anything..."

Her emotions seemed to overwhelm her. She buried her face in her hands, and her body racked. But she didn't cry out loud. And when she looked up, she was suddenly all over him. Her lips covered the top half of his body everywhere they could reach.

They started with his own (which they revisited several times). They touched his forehead. His neck. His shoulders, chest, and arms...

By then, he was laid back again, his hands gently set on her own head and shoulders. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He heard her whispering his name, and felt her fingers tightly gripping onto him...

It wasn't long before they found their whole bodies mingling. And unlike the usual, frantic hunger, it was slow and passionate.

When his eyes weren't closed to enjoy the taste of her lips, he was looking at her. His movements matched hers perfectly. Her voice and her hands, responding in pleasure to his actions, drove him harder. Her warmth had never felt so intense...

It didn't seem to end quickly, but he didn't know for sure. They stayed like that, on the couch, with their arms around each other for the rest of the day, just looking into each other's eyes... Occasionally, one of them would softly kiss the other.

Desmond never fell back asleep that day. This solidified it.

With a sigh – of either reluctance or relief, he couldn't tell – he disentangled himself gently from her hours later and headed for the laptop by the recliner chair. It was time to get back to his mom.

And Lucy's.


	13. Comfort

**A special thanks to all of my readers and reviewers. :) Here, this chapter cleared editing. Story direction-wise, not necessarily all that other stuff. ;) Enjoy it. Not done yet!**

* * *

_In spite of himself, Desmond felt a little guilty when he slithered back into the HQ later. Lila was seated behind the desk, and she looked up with a bright smile when he approached._

_ "Been busy?" she asked, casually arranging some papers on the desk in front of her._

_ "You could, uh... say that..." replied Desmond, scratching the back of his head._

_ Lila didn't miss that. "Oh?" she pressed lightly. "Busy doing what, if I may ask?"_

_ The question put Desmond in a quiet panic. He wasn't sure WHAT to say... Should he reveal to anyone – let alone, his father's unofficially personal assistant – that he'd gone back to Bad Weather? What would happen if that was spread around? What if Lucy heard, knowing about Christine as she did? What if Shaun heard? THAT wouldn't be pretty..._

_ But Lila was waiting, a puzzled expression on her face, for an answer. "I... um... went to a bar," said Desmond, stupidly._

_ "A bar, huh?" She didn't sound convinced, but she began stuffing papers in various multicolored folders on the desk in front of her and did not press further. "Well, while you were out, Shaun Hastings came by and left a message for you."_

_ Desmond leaned forward on the desk. "Oh?" he mimicked._

_ "Yes. I believe it said – and I quote – something like: 'When you get back, move your skinny, white, all-American ass into the cafeteria. I heard something from Rebecca.'" And she raised her eyes prominently upwards as she lifted the envelop with his name on it to him. "Such a charming fellow."_

_ "You'll get used to it eventually," said Desmond. With his index finger, he tore open the top of it, and his eyes scanned the message back and forth. "Assuming you stay with the Animus Team." A smile broke out on his face. "Good quoting, by the way. That's EXACTLY what Shaun said."_

_ Lila sighed, and began scribbling something complicated on the sticky notepad in front of her. "I don't know WHAT I'm going to do, truth be told." She removed her glasses, and affixed him with a solid gaze. "Can I tell you something? In confidence?"_

_ Desmond leaned down towards her. "Sure."_

_ "I've been... having some family troubles recently. I have a son, Brandon. He's... with his father." She sighed, and looked away, rubbing her hands over her eyes. "I would appreciate it if he... WASN'T with his father."_

_ He jutted his lips out thoughtfully. "Why? Deadbeat dad?"_

_ She shook her head. "No. No, nothing like that... but my ex and I have had our fair share of problems. Disagreements over how to raise Brandon, I guess I should say."_

_ For a moment, he considered it inappropriate to ask, but decided to chance it, anyway – she was talking to him about this, wasn't she? "What kind of disagreements?"_

_ "Richard's family is a bit of a nightmare. Three of his cousins are alcoholics. One is in prison for convicted child molestation, and the other is in jail for charges pending. One of his sisters died driving under the influence home from work... at a strip club. The grandparents are finally divorcing after twenty years of unhappiness, but his mother pulled a gun on his father a few weeks ago. And the disagreements are about how much time Brandon should be spending with them, I suppose. I don't think it's a great environment, but Richard, of course, defends his family..." And again, she sighed._

_ But Desmond just blinked. "I'm inclined to agree with you on that one."_

_ "Yes. I figured so... But I've been involved with the Assassins for years longer than it seems. 'Receptionist' is technically a demotion... but I see it as a step up, personally."_

_ He nodded. "Given the line of work, yeah..."_

_ "But things are still... not over, yet. They need me for this. And unfortunately, that leaves my son–"_

_ "–home with his dad's insane family."_

_ "Yes."_

_ She looked up at him, and there was a faint hint of madness there in her frustration. He cocked his head to the side, and squeezed her shoulders once._

_ "I'm thinking about asking your father if... do you think we could arrange something?" She leaned forward on her elbows. "I just feel like... I spent all this time trying to make the world a better place for my son... trying to save it for him... and what if Richard drags him to a family party, and someone there gets drunk, and hurts him? Or something like that? And I'm not there to help? What if–"_

_ "–hey, hey, hey!" interrupted Desmond. Hand beneath her chin, he turned her face upwards to him. "Don't talk like that. If he's been alright this whole time, I doubt anything will happen to him now. And if you're that worried about it – which, like I said, I kinda see your point – then ask my dad about it. He'll see to it, I bet. In fact, I don't think Brandon would be the first child in a case like this..."_

_ Lila took a deep breath. "What if they can't bring him here, but they send him somewhere else? Like... an Assassin foster home? All I want is to see my son, and what if–"_

_ "–Lila, honey, do me a favor, and let up on the what ifs," he cut across her. "In an 'Assassin foster home'..." and he couldn't help chuckling at her terminology, "...he would at least be in better shape. Probably, he'd be closer, too. And..." he balanced himself on his elbows on the desk next to her, "...I'll talk to my old man, if it helps. Make sure Brandon gets a good deal." And he patted her back once. "Okay?"_

_ Lila took another deep breath, sat back, and reapplied her glasses. "Okay... Okay."_

_ Desmond grinned, and made to step out from behind the desk._

_ But she grabbed his jacket sleeve. "Thank you, Desmond."_

_ He returned her smile with one of his own, and then made for the cafe, which wasn't too far from the front door. Behind him, he could feel her eyes on him._

_ He sighed with a measure of relief when he entered the familiar, calming environment of the cafe. He half-expected Shaun wouldn't be there. Almost hoped for it, actually. He didn't know how he'd be able to keep his trip to Bad Weather and the subsequent sex that he'd known would inevitably take place between him and Christine from Shaun when he was sitting right there._

_ But no such luck. He'd just have to find some way to deal with it, because Shaun was there – absentmindedly, it looked like, flipping through a notebook. Desmond's eyes narrowed at it. What was that all about...?_

_ Shaun looked up as he approached and helped himself to a seat. "Where were you?" he demanded, sharply, yet quietly._

_ "I was out," answered Desmond simply. "Why?"_

_ "Because, I've got to tell you about a conversation I had with Rebecca this morning."_

_ Desmond looked past Shaun and out the window. Was the sun really about to set, that quickly?_

_ With something of a jolt, he pulled his attention back to Shaun. "Yeah? Go on..."_

_ Shaun flipped the purple-covered notebook closed. "This morning, when we were in the team's room, Lucy came in jabbering about your date to go see _Titanic_."_

_ A grin came onto Desmond's face, partly in anticipation for the answer and partly because Shaun wasn't pressing the topic. "Did she like it?" he asked, excitedly._

_ "She did. Quite a lot, actually. She said you two had drinks afterwards."_

_ Desmond raised his eyebrows. "Yep. And an interesting conversation..."_

_ "Must have been. Because Rebecca threw a fit."_

_ Desmond's eyes flitted back and forth in, looking between each of Shaun's. After another moment of silence, he steeled himself inwardly, and asked: "Why?"_

_ "She accused Lucy of cheating."_

_ As a natural reaction, Desmond's hands flew up in the air and smacked down on his knees. "Christ Al-fucking-mighty!" he exclaimed._

_ The waitress that had been approaching jumped a bit in his peripheral vision._

_ "Oh, sorry!" he apologized hastily. "Sorry, no, I wasn't talking about you. No, that's alright, really. I'll just have some hot tea, unsweetened."_

_ She nodded, short blonde curls bouncing slightly as she scurried away. The smile that had been on her bright red lips barely concealed her shock._

_ "Why?" asked Desmond, when she had disappeared behind the counter, in a much quieter tone. "What did Lucy say that made her think THAT?"_

_ Shaun shrugged, and leaned back in his seat. "I don't know. It sounds like the date was a mild success between the two of you, but... the minute she said it, I knew she was full of shit. You would've told me that, right?"_

_ "I would've told the whole world," said Desmond, also leaning back in his seat._

_ "That was my argument – once Lucy was out of the room, of course – but Rebecca's whole thing was that Lucy wouldn't have told anybody else about that. And that she probably would've told you to keep it in, too. And you would've done it, because she's got you whipped."_

_ Desmond's eyes narrowed again. Rebecca was slowly climbing to the top of his shit list, a position he was sure she would hold squarely for as long as he knew her if she ever attained it._

_ "The truly interesting things were said when Lucy was no longer involved," continued Shaun. "I finally asked her why she feels the way she does, but she kept dodging the issue. Claimed this whole thing is about protecting Lucy. She says that you, as a bartender with your history, probably don't even know what love feels like, and Lucy would get hurt if she ever got seriously involved with you."_

_ At that moment, the waitress set Desmond's tea down in front of him with a click on the table. "Here you are, sir."_

_ Desmond inhaled and smiled briefly at her for a second before she turned and head back to the counter._

_ "Anyway..." Shaun went on, "...I asked what her general beef with you was, because this whole thing with Gary suggests there's more to it than that."_

_ "Right, because she and Gary have been together now for a good while," said Desmond bitterly, sipping at his tea._

_ "Exactly. She never answered that question, either though. I even tried baiting her by hinting she had... well, you know... feelings for you, herself. She actually laughed at that, so I can assume not."_

_ Desmond snorted. "Yeah. The sentiment's the same on my end, as well..."_

_ "I hope so," said Shaun, drinking the rest of what looked like coffee from his own mug. "I mean, you know... because Lucy may be a tough case, but Rebecca would be a lost cause, for you," he went on after a moment's pause._

_ "No doubt. She seemed to like me a lot more before we actually SAVED the world..."_

_ "I asked her about that, too. She says that she doesn't deny, she's happy with your work in that situation."_

_ "My 'work'?" repeated Desmond, incredulously. "Which of my 'works' was she the most pleased by? Hunting down all those Pieces of Eden and killing Juno with them – which wasn't an easy fight AT ALL? Preventing the sun from burning us to a crisp? Or was it crashing the Abstergo satellite into the Temple?"_

_ "All of it, I guess," answered Shaun, with another roll of his shoulders. "I don't know... but she did also admit that she appreciated the comfort you gave her when it was really looking bad, for a while, there. She says you CAN be a nice guy..."_

_ Desmond took another sip of tea. "Yeah, sure. She can throw me a bone when I was doing something she wanted."_

_ "I think there was more to it than that, but whatever. The point is, she says the reason she doesn't like you overall is because your personality grates on her. And because she could tell how you and Lucy felt about each other, to start out with. She knows you, at least, still feel that way, and she just wishes you would, as she puts it, 'go away'."_

_ Desmond frowned, and ground his teeth together. "Why doesn't she?" he said through them. "No one's making her stay, and it's not like she'd have to leave you and Lucy to get away from me. I hate to say it, in a weird way, but it's not like I'd miss her all that much, and–"_

_ "–she kind of would have to leave me and Lucy. Because that came up in the conversation, at one point. The one with Lucy, I mean. Lucy told Rebecca, in no uncertain terms, she wasn't leaving the Assassins. She feels she's done too much, and she should be making up for it. She had Rebecca stumped on that one, because as we all remember, Rebecca took a little longer warming up to Lucy again than even your father."_

_ Desmond nodded. He remember poignantly how distant Rebecca has been. She wasn't rude to Lucy, not by any stretch of the imagination. But she was guarded, at the time. Like she was really trying to make sure Lucy was on the up-and-up._

_ But now, it seemed, she'd dug herself into a hole. From reading her emails and talking to her in person, Desmond had gathered plenty about how hard this war had been on Rebecca underneath her cheery demeanor... and Lucy had always been the one to pick her back up. Throughout the whole affair, they'd been really close friends, even when Lucy had been in Abstergo. Even when she'd been separated from the rest of the order to make her infiltration into Abstergo seem more believable and natural. Rebecca had always kept contact with her._

_ So she hadn't taken the discovery that Lucy had sold them out very well. Desmond remembered clearly, one night, sitting outside with Rebecca and drinking a little. Rebecca had had quite a rant about the situation. Lucy, her family, the Templars, the Assassins, the state of the world, etc. And at the time, Desmond had found it to be a pretty well-thought out and genuine speech. In looking back at it now, it sounded like the no-less genuine but not-so-well-thought out venting of a bitter woman who felt older than she was. Thinking back to their time in Monteriggioni, Desmond also remembered Lucy having the same mindset about a lot of things. The same viewpoints... He supposed it was what had bonded them together, in the first place._

_ And now that the world had been saved, Lucy was back, and her atonement was undeniably honest, Rebecca couldn't claim the need for emotional distance. It seemed to Desmond, as he took another drink of tea, that what Rebecca was the most afraid of was that he would hurt Lucy somehow and chase her away again, which would leave Rebecca alone once more. She knew that, presently, she held a greater position of influence on Lucy than Desmond did, and she was going to pull out all the stops to keep them separated. She'd support Lucy's childish relationship with Gary. She accuse Lucy of cheating with Desmond anytime the two of them had any contact at all. If, that is, Desmond was right, he wondered..._

_ But all he could say to Shaun was, "Yeah..." And he ducked his head. There really was no way around it... "Look, I, uh–" but he paused._

_ He felt utterly and indescribably torn. At this point, Shaun was really all he had. Keeping secrets felt kind of wrong. But he knew Shaun wouldn't approve of him going back to Bad Weather, and much less of him fucking Christine. And he didn't want to take the risk of chasing Shaun off..._

_ The cons of telling him outweighed the pros, in Desmond's mind. So he answered Shaun's questioning look with, "–I want to know what Lucy said, too."_

_ "She was pissed. I think Rebecca sort of overshot her hand, there. Judging by her face, she seemed to have expected a different response from Lucy. I don't know what, exactly, but what she got was far from it. Rebecca threatened, covertly, to tell Gary."_

_ Desmond clicked his tongue. "I'm not sure if I'd be upset about that, though... Might make my life easier."_

_ Shaun's brow furrowed. "How so? It sounds to me like it would just add to the drama."_

_ "It probably would, at first. But think about what that would do. Even if Gary didn't believe it, he'd always have it hanging in the back of his mind. He'd probably suffocate her. Remember what he told you guys at lunch a week after he and Lucy made it official? About how his last marriage dissolved because he just 'knew that she was cheating'?" Desmond made air quotes along with this one, and let his arms fall into a fold across his chest, his scarred lips spreading into a contained grin. "And if he did believe it, he'd break up with her. Or confront me about it, which I might actually prefer, because then I'd have a good excuse to knock him on his pretentious ass..."_

_ "That's what Lucy seemed to think would happen if Rebecca told him," said Shaun. "That's good thinking on your part, but Lucy's response to Rebecca was that there would be 'problems between me and you if you make any trouble between me and Desmond'."_

_ Desmond felt a twinge of two feelings mixed together move through him, and his lip twitched as an outward manifestation of it. On the one hand, there was the disappointment behind yet-another of the different things he'd considered being shot down. And on the other, Lucy's wording there had suggested that she would be quicker to be rid of him than she would Gary, or even Rebecca, at this point. Which could mean the date hadn't been as much of a step forward as he'd thought, even though she had seemed remarkably out of character that night with him. In a way that she usually only was when she was with... or talking to on Facebook... Gary._

_ "Great," he sighed. "But what I meant was, what did she say about the date that started this whole thing?"_

_ "Oh, she gushed about it. She said you were a 'perfect gentleman', escorting her through town on your arm. She talked about eating out with you, and talking about her family with you. She says you're very understanding about it, and she appreciates that."_

_ Desmond smiled. "Good," was all he could say. "I doubt she'll be willing to do much else along those lines now, though." He pulled his jacket – a blue-and-white plaid-patterned zip-up shirt with a hood and several pockets – in a little closer to himself, and drank some more of his tea. "Now that Rebecca's opened her big mouth about it..."_

_ Shaun stood up and left some money on the table. "Well..." he said, clapping Desmond's shoulder twice, "...I wouldn't say that. She was quite happy with it, and not quite so happy with Rebecca's attitude towards it. And there's a few days before Gary comes back." He winked towards Desmond's direction. "If you get the chance... maybe... just... wing it?"_

_ Desmond nodded, and shivered. "Winging it is sometimes the best way, yeah."_

_ "Then I'm confident you've got this next one down," said Shaun, softly._

_ He clapped Desmond's back and wandered out into the lobby. Desmond watched him till he disappeared on the elevator behind the receptionist desk where Lila had been replaced by someone else. Desmond looked up at the clock. It WAS getting close to eight o'clock..._

_ He sighed, and sank back into his reclined position in the chair. His mouth opened into a yawn. In the nearby window, there was an older air conditioner running. It gave off a soft, consistent whirring sound as it operated. His eyes glazed over, one hand on his mug of still-warm tea. And the other, he pulled childishly up into his jacket and let rest on his lap, while the sleeve lay on top of it... He closed his eyes and allowed the whirring to comfort him. In spite of everything that had happened, for his life on the farm and everything in between that and now that had taken him right up to this moment, there was nothing that would take away this simple, soft sound. He almost felt like he could go to sleep._

_ With a thought like THAT, though, he wasn't going to hang around and chance doing so sitting at the cafeteria table. He emptied his glass of the remaining tea and left a few dollars on top of Shaun's. The tea didn't cost much, and he felt a generous tip was owed for scaring the poor waitress so much..._

_ On the way up to his room, he wondered a bit about what he was going to do now that all this had happened between Rebecca and Lucy. He was sure Shaun was right, to a certain extent, about Lucy's whole assessment of the situation... but he was also sure that Rebecca and Gary were priorities in ways he wasn't to her, right now. It would take careful planning..._

_ ...but it would have to be careful planning he did later on. As the door to his room swung shut behind him and the lock clicked into place, he collapsed on the bed, all the exertion of sleeping with a woman (and dealing with all the histrionics in his life) coming down on him. In spite of that, there was a light grin playing at the edges and tips of his scarred lips when he closed his eyes._

_ And fortunately, his dreams were undisturbed by anything unpleasant._

_ On the contrary, he dreamed of Lucy. And in the dream, they were laying in a field of dandelions. Simple. Easy. Comforting. Exactly the type of thing that he was are, even in his sleep, he needed._

_ Some part of him was sure she was dreaming the same thing... and that she needed it, too._


End file.
